I know it’s crazy, but maybe it isn’t as crazy as it sounds. So humor me as I go on a little thought experiment. Here are the circumstances where Bobby Jindal could end up as a Republican Vice Presidential candidate at the Republican Convention this summer:
First, presume that Sen. John McCain is the Republican nominee for the Presidency, and he’s running against a youthful, African American Barack Obama, who represents “change” and also “diversity” — and who is also a media darling. (That’s just a hypothetical; Hillary might very well win.) Against Obama, McCain looks very old and very white.
Jindal is both young and brown, and the novelty of putting him on the ticket might mitigate the novelty of a Barack Obama presidency somewhat. It would certainly generate a number of “isn’t it inspiring?” types of stories and editorials in newspapers and on cable news — lots of good press for McCain and the Republican party as a whole.
Second, McCain desperately needs to motivate the base — the really conservative members of his party — and one way he can do that is to pick someone for the Vice Presidency who is himself a thorough social conservative. Jindal, as we’ve already established, fits the bill, what with his opposition to abortion in every instance (“no exceptions”), his opposition to Stem Cell research, his support for the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools, his support for a constitutional amendment banning flag-burning, and his pro-gun outlook.
Finally, I don’t think McCain will ask Mike Huckabee to be his running mate, mainly because Huckabee, despite his obvious support, is seen by many conservatives as too soft on certain issues, including taxes and foreign policy. His humor and easygoing style is terrific, but he sometimes comes across as a bit nutty, and that could be a liability. If not Huckabee, who? (Not George Allen, I don’t think.)
(After I wrote this post, I went to Wikipedia to confirm a couple of facts, and I discovered that Rush Limbaugh apparently voiced the same idea on his radio show last week. Either that means I’m on the right track… or I’ve lost my mind!)
Good that you are blogging this. It seems like a nice idea.
To the extent that VPs are picked based on their ability to be the so-called “attack dog,” I doubt Jindal would work well for McCain (esp. if Obama is the Dem nominee). Jindal was on MSNBC over the weekend and said that while he disagrees with many of his policies, he has great admiration for the energy Obama has brought to the campaign and his “let’s get past blind partisanship” message. There’s clearly some admiration there, and it would make it hard for him to pivot and go after Obama (except on policy differences, I suppose).
I think they should plan on asking Chris Rock to be the running mate for McCain. I think thats a terrific plan.
Rush Limbaugh has come around to accept McCain?
if that actually does happen, how will he expect anyone to trust a man who abandoned Louisiana so quickly to the incompetent buffoons he defeated in the gubernatorial election? He did mention wanting to help Louisiana and that he was the guy to do it.
That said, McCain is woefully soft on teh gays, Secularist Covens (otherwise known as our public-school system) and that Al-Qaida affiliate known as Planned Parenthood. Jindal would up his cred in all those areas.
KarmaByte,
I heard David Kirkpatrick on NPR last night, suggesting that while Rush remains lukewarm on McCain, he’s no longer at war with him. His current attitude is apparently something like “McCain, Hillary, Obama, they’re all the same.”
Well. Lieberman / Edwards / Al Gore(??) were not “attack dogs”. I think Jindal would be a nice VP candidate in this “identity” based election.
6 · Amardeep said
lol! This cartoon by Ben Sargent had captured the initial reaction (of Rush and others) to a McCain nomination well.
Condoleeza Rice.
Rice is both young and black, and the novelty of putting her on the ticket will mitigate the novelty of a Barack Obama presidency drastically. It would certainly generate a number of “isn’t it inspiring?†types of stories and editorials in newspapers and on cable news — lots of good press for McCain and the Republican party as a whole.
M. Nam
Having Jindal on his ticket will not help McCain counter Obama’s newness/diversity card. There is far too little time left until November for the “Jindal story” to permeate among the American public for it to make much of an impact. Jindal does not have much to show by way of performance as a politician. Apart from Hurricane Katrina, his tenure as a Congressman was largely uneventful, and he’s become the Louisiana governor so recently that it would be impossible for Americans to judge his record. John McCain is an old man – so Americans will also be considering the ‘what if’ aspect too, when considering the attractiveness of the VP nominee. Also, would McCain want to be seen as acquiescing to Limbaugh’s suggestion?
Jindal would be a poor choice because he needs to finish out his term as governor, and show he can actually govern. (I say that as someone who is hoping to vote for McCain, and is also a Jindal fan.)
Rice is a poor choice because she’s part of an unpopular administration and wouldn’t let McCain run away from the unpopular Republicans during the general campaign
National Review Online (or Captain’s quarters, or some other place, I can’t remember which) posted a list of potential candidates from it’s conservative readers. I’d go there for a more viable candidate.
If he governs well, though, look out for 2012 or perhaps, beyond, after Jindal wins a second term. He’s not ready, although given the amount of experience some of the other (D) candidates have, well…..
Mccain is going to pick an established vp running mate. Bobby hasn’t been around long enough. Repubs are not going to make the same mistake they made with Dan Quayle.
Condee, as a VP? LOL… that’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard today.
While Jindal as Veep is an entertaining proposition, I expect McCain to pick one of the following people: Charlie Crist (who could help deliver FL), Tim Pawlenty (could deliver MN), or Mark Sanford.
Rice is both young and black, and the novelty of putting her on the ticket will mitigate the novelty of a Barack Obama presidency drastically. It would certainly generate a number of “isn’t it inspiring?†types of stories and editorials in newspapers and on cable news — lots of good press for McCain and the Republican party as a whole.
I don’t think she’d work — Rice is too closely associated with the Bush administration to be a good candidate. It would make it easy for the Dems to tag McCain & Rice as “Bush, all over again.” You need someone who is loyal, but who isn’t too closely linked to Bush.
You could also make a point for Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Adding a woman to the Republican ticket would be an interesting development irrespective of whether the Dem nominee is Obama or Clinton. But like Jindal, she’s a bit too green (both just recently became governors).
Jindal has barely started, and he’s already losing steam in Louisiana. It’s more of the same (only sounds different), and I doubt the McCain camp wants to put Louisiana, usually synonymous with corruption, on a potentially winning Republican ticket.
Wow, that link was interesting Maitri. Sheesh – can anyone govern such an ungovernable place? What a truly dysfunctional political culture!
17 · MD said
Wel, he better govern Louisiana well. Jindal seems to be an ambitious guy. It would not be far-fetched to assume that he aspires to run for President. If Louisiana remains unchanged, he can forget about his White House dreams.
If Mccain wants to see himself in the White house he should pick Schwarzneggar. It should be a winning ticket for the Repugs.
I’m more interested who Obama will pick if he’s the nominee.
Mark Warner would be good in my opinion.
Bloomberg as his VP. You heard it here first, long shot that it is. Economy is the issue Mccain will need to win on versus Billary and Obama. If he wants to improve his credibility in that area, a Bloomberg VP would help. Additionally, he would be able to get those independents who still feel queasy about the Dems on national security issues and like the fiscal responsibility a Mccain/Bloomberg admin might bring. The core repubs are just going to have to deal with the fact that Bush’s administration or lack thereof has marginalized them for the moment.
20 · lion said
It won’t be Mark Warner. He is heavily favored in his Senate race, and would represent a Democratic pick-up in the Senate. No Democrat would want to jeopordize that.
It is truly a miracle of marketing that Republicans are always seen as experts on national security despite having made such a royal hash of it on all counts!
Sorry — screwed up the blockquoting again in #22. I should really start previewing until I figure out why the “quote” option doesn’t seem to work for me ….
The problem is the interaction of the italics “< i >” tag with paragraph breaks in the text. For whatever reason, the italics tag breaks grouping at paragraph boundaries, and that screws up blockquoting since the “quote” function nests italics tags within blockquotes. It would be nice if the quote button was removed till this is fixed, since it really makes reading some comments quite annoying because of the confusion.
Arnold can’t be VP; he wasn’t born here.
Wake up people.
23 · Rahul said
Your absolutely right especially where it comes to Bush. The idea of going into Iraq when he did was ill-timed, to say the least, especially where Afghanistan hadn’t been mopped up. What’s worse is how they mishandled the post invasion phase of Iraq (e.g.: not paying the Iraqi army and then disbanding it, thus providing a ready supply of troops for insurgents and separatist groups or keeping generals that defected on the payroll while dismissing the middle ranks which run the army; majors and captains for being Baath party members – which was required of all higher ranks). I do think Mccain isn’t a product of marketing at least on national security. He certainly has credentials due to his personal history, his service on the Senate Armed Services Committee, his general support of the military and the success that he claims was generated by sending a surge of troops into Iraq.
BTW, you could have also added how badly the Repubs have managed the economy and the budget for the US. Yet, they seemingly get a pass on that as well. What happened to fiscal conservatism or attempting to balance a budget? It seems like there’s been more pork handed out (e.g.: Halliburton) than free samples of Jimmy Dean at the local grocer. They’ve managed to outspend the tax and spend liberals, their so-called nemesis. At least the tax and spend types were thoughtful enough to figure out how to pay for programs, the Repubs of late just pass on the debt to another admin. or generation.
Jindal would never be the VP pick. He does not add appeal – at best he keeps it neutral. He MIGHT pick up “diversity points” from liberals (unlikely, given the rock stars running on the Democratic ticket), but most likely he would drive more Republicans away from McCain into not-voting. Plus, who, besides the people here, has even heard of Jindal? If McCain REALLY wanted to go that route, the correct person for the job is Colin Powell (though I doubt he’d run).
The Vice Presidency is much more important now, following sixteen years of Gore and Cheney, than at any point in the past. If McCain is smart, he’ll pick someone relatively conservative as his veep. Huckabee or Romney would not be an unreasonable choice; that would go a long way to mitigating his perception as a liberal Republican-lite.
I agree with almost everything you said, but I think he lost a lot of credibility when he walked into an Iraqi market in bulletproof vests and with hovering helicopters and troops to protect him, and then claims that is an indication of Baghdad’s normalcy. As for the surge, I don’t think there is any question that it has improved things. The real point is that it is not sustainable in the least, and was purely a cynical strategy by Bush’s people to buy time till the elections.
Him and Reagan both! To quote Galbraith, trickle-down is when you feed enough oats to the horse, some trickles down to feed the sparrow.
Habaneros for Veep!
3 · brown said
that is my favorite SepiaSnark today. Thanks, brown.
Hey Amardeep, I guess wise men think alike. Here’s a link to a post I placed on the Asian-American Fund blog about a month ago:
http://www.aaa-fund.com/?p=124
No, losing your mind is when you find yourself driving back to work from lunch and actually hear this fundie-con fantasy live on big bad AM radio!
Why do desis do this to themselves? Jindal is a spineless white ‘chamcha’. He does not represent anything the Indian community can be proud of. His voting record has been even right of the right wing, with pro-white stances. Why are we hoping for his success? because his father was from India? But he threw away that mantle the moment he converted to Catholicism and refused to identify with any values his heritage has given him. sorry – wherever he was from – I cannot think anybody can gain by putting him on their ticket!
While Mr.Jindal is to far to the right to me. A part of me would be happy to see a punjabi who has intergrated into western society make it that far. It would be good message to all newcomers that intergrating into the culture of the new country you living is good thing.
I don’t think folks will clamor to put Jindal on the ticket (yet). I’d expect to see him on a ticket in the future if he can hold onto his gubernatorial seat.
Arnold cannot be VP. But also, McCain is already covered in the media as a “maverick” and as the most “moderate” of the Repub choices (I’m not arguing this is true, just paraphrasing the narrative). Arnold tries to cultivate a similar story. McCain is going to want someone who can pull in the parts of the base who don’t want to vote for him, and added bonus if there’s some “diversity” in that. This is why you won’t see Olympia Snowe or Jodi Rell on the ticket, either.
!!!!!
Could you please clarify what you mean by “integrating”?
33 · netizen said
Are you saying that people who are Catholic are not Indian? That there is no overlap between Catholic values and Indian values? Careful there with such enlightened views.
You know, you can disagree with someone whose politics are polar-opposite to yours without insulting millions of people in the process. Unless you are someone who conflates “Indian” with “Hindu”, in which case we can ban you and save us all from future irritation.
No way McCain chooses Jindal.
Could you please clarify what you mean by “integrating”?
When I mean intergrating, I don’t mean giving up all your culture. But understanding that things done in the west are not the same as your homeland.
I have to take my 9 year old daughter to hockey practice[a punjabi girl playing hockey, I must be a bad punjabi father]. So I can’t answer the question now, but if you want to email me. I’m at suki1328@yahoo.com. I’m more then willing to answer any question you have.
I agree with the argument that Jindal needs some more experience before he’s “ready” for a national ticket. On the other hand, it’s a pretty unconventional year politically–maybe Jindal’s youth balances McCain’s age?
“On the other hand, it’s a pretty unconventional year politically–maybe Jindal’s youth balances McCain’s age?”
if i was voting, age would not matter. it would be nice to have a brown Asian or south Asian face in the higher ranks of power. but if you disagree with what they say, what they stand for, there can never be a compromise.
My nanimasi was a hurdler and my bhua played field hockey. Both are Punjabi — one shehri and the other pindi. My dad took his girls to soccer (at our request). It’s not as rare as you think. But, I also didn’t realize Suki Dillon = Clueless, so I retract my question.
33 · netizen said
You mean, why do desis think for themselves? Are you seriously contending that those who disagree with you lack backbone? I don’t know what “chamcha” means, but I will say that nee orru mutta koodhi.
He doesn’t represent anything you can be proud of, but you don’t speak for all, you don’t even speak for all Hindus. And what the hell does “pro-white” stance mean– as if desis haven’t benefitted from some of those? This post was not hoping for anything, it was a thought experiment some of us enjoyed reading. Jindal-loathers would do well to remember that people who do not share their hatred for the man do exist and prefacing rants about the evil one with anti-secular insults doesn’t enhance one’s argument.
43 · Pondatti said
At least he doesn’t have a wide stance 🙂
44 · portmanteau said
Excellent point. Though who knows, perhaps desis have benefitted from those, too. 😉
Maybe someone can explain to me why Mccain needs to appease the far right by choosing a VP who is very conservative in nature. Isn’t it accepted that many right wing or “core” repubs so dislike him and distrust him because of his centrist leanings that they would rather sit out an election than vote for him. (example some of Rush Limbaugh, Ingraham and Coulter’s radio statements) Would choosing a conservative republican change this very strong feeling? Personally, I don’t think that would change too many minds. My limited life experience tells me that it takes a great deal of work to change a very strong feeling or impression and even then its not a guarantee that one will ever be trusted again.
And wouldn’t choosing a very conservative republican as veep make Mccain look hypocritical, especially where his Veep’s views may contradict his own. After all, isn’t he the maverick who’s on the straight talk express? Further, isn’t it accepted (by polls) that if Billary is the Dem nominee that the “core” Repubs would stoop to no end to stop her from becoming president, including voting for Mccain. So, in my analysis, which could be flawed, Mccain would be better served by deeming the “core” repubs as lost as they who would only vote for him depending on who the Dem nominee will end up being. If that’s the case wouldn’t he be better served moving toward the middle and stealing reagan dems and shoring up the support of the moderate repubs and goldwater repubs who feel left out of their own party. Let’s not forget there’s a lot of Reagan Dems who may not view an Obama candidacy with much support.
Mccain might be better served giving the finger to Rush and Coulter and win the election by moving toward the middle. Seriously, I acknowledge I maybe missing a great deal of pieces in this oversimplified analysis and I welcome anyone to point it out, but I don’t see how a conservative republican veep such as Jindal would help Mccain.
I haven’t read a single comment (i’m too excited to comment myself) so sorry if I am repeating something. This idea has been around for about two months. There is not a snowballs chance in hell that McCain would ask Jindal and an even smaller chance that Jindal would accept. First, McCain is very very old. It is not implausible that he’d die in office. DO you think he would risk our nation’s future to an untested governor who isn’t even 40? And what about Jindal? If he has any ambition to run for President some day he would be killing his chances. Governors almost always have a better chance at being President than senators (this year being a rare exception). Jindal has the chance to build a great resume by remaining in his current office. Anybody can turn around Louisiana (because it can’t get any worse). Why would he throw away that chance to run as a worthless VP on a ticket guaranteed to be crushed by whoever the Dems put up? This idea is a pipe dream at best.
You know, I wish I could meet people like you in real life, because honestly you will not be able to talk smack like this.
Two issues with what you said, Conversion and Pro-White.
You do not want to celebrate Jindal, fine, but you (I assume) and people like you celebrate(d) when Azhar scored runs, caught a catch or when a non-hindu cricket player performed well. Hell there were so many emails going around, talking about how nice Abdul Kalam the ex-president of India was and how much he has done. You are the same people who support all the Khans in Bollywood by watching their movies. Every single one of them (via their ancestors back in the day) are probably converts, so why don’t you start hating on them? Your logic should apply there too…
And what is the pro-white stance you are talking about? choosing another religion? There are plenty of ‘white’ hindus and buddhists (who are probably better hindus and buddhists than I will ever be), I dont get the point.
If this is not logic enough, take Sunita Williams, why do Indians love her so much? She fits more into a ‘bobby’ role than most other examples I have given.
You dumbeh, what mantel are you talking about? The fact that he failed in your eyes? He still is the Governor of Louisiana and at the end of the day, you and I are still some random online commenter’s, who can do just that and nothing more. Let’s at least keep it civil and secular.
Rahul,
Well George Bush walked into Yankee Stadium after 9/11 and threw out the first pitch in the World Series in a bulletproof vest and a phalanx of praetorian guard. But then again, some people from Boston might think that normal. (BTW, 18-1).
My goodness, I just reread my last comment and I think I threw in a record number of “he would be better served”. I think those late night viewings of “You got served” have affected me.
Maybe it’s a question of what the turnout would be among hard-core conservatives? Not sure, but that’s what comes to mind as a possibility.
I see what you mean, but I bet it’ll be closer than you’re thinking in the end this year, at the Presidential level (not so much at Congressional, where your instinct is, I think, spot-on).