I believe I was among the first bloggers to throw out the name Bobby Jindal as a possible running mate for John McCain — I made the speculation back in February, not too long after McCain emerged as the front-runner in the Republican primaries. At the time it seemed a bit out there, even to me, and there was never any indication from anyone close to McCain that Jindal was on their list. Still, the story kept floating around, and now it seems to have moved to the next level.
For the first time, there are signs that Jindal is being considered among a very short list of possible running mates by the McCain camp:
Senator John McCain is planning to meet this weekend with at least three potential Republican running mates at a gathering at his ranch in Arizona, suggesting that he is stepping up his search for a vice president now that the Democratic contest appears basically decided, according to Republicans familiar with Mr. McCain’s plans.
Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a one-time rival for the Republican nomination, have all accepted invitations to visit with Mr. McCain at his ranch in Sedona, these Republicans said. (link)
A couple of other names are also mentioned by the New York Times article, including Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, and Bob Portman. Lindsay Graham will also be invited to the “Veep Vet” party in Sedona, though thus far it appears he’s going as a close friend of McCain’s, rather than as a potential VP.
Given all that competition, it still seems unlikely that Jindal would be chosen. The strongest reason I was able to come up with before was a presumed Republican anxiety about a game-changing, mass-movement emerging around Obama. And while that has happened to some extent, it’s also become clear that there are limits to its reach (i.e., Appalachia). So the idea of off-setting a minority Democratic candidate with a minority Republican Vice-Presidential candidate is probably seeming less urgent now.
Still, perhaps we’re due to have our first Punjabi Vice President.
100 · Pravin said
I agree. even if there is no practical effect, as “ID? big deal” maintains, our regime is based on principle, consequences be damned. teaching creationism as science in public schools violates the establishment clause. you could, however, teach it as part of a humanities curriculum in public schools if its given equal status to secular pseudo-scientific philosophies such as freudianism or marxism for example, and make a legit end-run around the 1st amendment.
Way to go, HMF! As for Jindal, it is just too bad — downright embarrassing –that the first politician of desi descent to attract national attention just happens to be a war-mongering, gay-bashing, bible-thumping neanderthal endorsed by crazies of the Limbaugh ilk.
My politics are completely different than Jindal’s but hey, since they include identity politics, I think desi americans would be atypically unstrategic negotiators in America’s racial heirarchies not to reward republicans for considering Jindal. Each time Jindal is in the news as having serious Veep consideration, there should be floods of desi political donation money to the Republican National Committee. That’s something tangible that can be pointed to. Are desi americans going to be the brown jews, or the brown (insert least politically effective social group here).
I agree with chachaji That Jindal’s next rational move after governor is burnishing foreign policy credentials. The best way he could do that is as Secretary of State, but the second best and more likely root is as a Senator. But I think Governors could develop much stronger foreign policy credentials than they generally do. For example, Louisianna probably has state-based national guard troops in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Jindal would do well to visit them twice per year. In addition, he’d do well to go on trade-promoting trips to important trading partners with America and Louisiana (China, Russia, Israel) as long as such travel didn’t exceed 6 weeks out of the year, and couldn’t be spun as time spent in 5 star hotels and restaurants with an excessive enterouge on the taxpayer’s dime. If I could advise him, I’d say go for 2 terms as governor with as agressive foreign policy involvement as is prudent, rather than going the cabinet position/senate route. Oh yeah, and he could write a book every couple years on how to promote national security with examples from what he’s done in Louisiana.
I agree with almost everyone that we need desi candidates this strong on the Democrat side (and also more Desi candidates this strong on the Republican side). I think Kal Penn has a potential as a progressive. He could be looking at political slots in California, Washington State, and Maryland. Also, if Obama wins the presidency, the most qualified Desi progressives should look at trying to step into the Obama senate seat in Illinois, since they could conflate with him pretty naturally.
103 · Dave said
I wish the Democrats would leave my state. They’re raising the taxes, and shafting middle class peeps here (we have the highest gas prices of all the big cities..Chi town).
Gas prices are pretty much the last thing you should whine about – d’you have any idea what your counterparts across the Atlantic have to pay?
105 · Meena said
True. I should be more appreciative. All I’m saying is that Democratic agendas screw the people the people they intend to help. Raising the corporate tax (like Obama) wants to do, will send jobs overseas.
I really shouldn’t meddle in American political issues, but if the Democrats offered something in exchange for the higher taxes, say government protection plans, wouldn’t there be less animosity towards the high taxes?
Protectionism isn’t good for most people.
So we should become more socialist, like many European nations?
Amitabh – Well I’d hardly call it socialist. That’s a bit extreme isn’t it? I’m not telling you what to do or not – just offering an alternative viewpoint. I don’t know if it would work in the United States – the size and diversity of the population IS a problem. All I’m saying is, wouldn’t people be happier if there wasn’t some sort of safetly net for the poorest of the poor? Weighted taxes according to income levels? If the government couldn’t at least provide some basics instead of leaving people to fend for themselves? Who really believes in the American Dream anyway nowadays?
Your use of the term ‘socialist’ is interesting, though. In my country, there is a Socialist Party, and they are considered too far out most of the time. They want, for instance, an all-out ban on nuclear power, if my memory serves me, as well as strict control on genetic manipulation, and even higher taxes. Only in recent years they have gained a lot of popularity in the working class, because of the state of political affairs, and a lot of promises were made by the status-quo parties which weren’t being kept. Now we have a Christian coalition, which is also quite socialist in a lot of ways, but also very parochial in my view. So you see why the use of ‘socialist’ to denote European governments irks me – you have to view them in their own context, not that of the United States.
Rahul S:
111 · Meena said
I assume that you live in Europe. But, (1) let’s look at the farm subsidies American farmers have been getting. These subsidies protect the American farmers over foreign competition. We have an increase in food prices (attributed to many things). Foreign competition would bring that price of food down (bc it’s cheaper to produce). People who are middle class or poor are hurt, while the few farmers benefit (yes the lack of protectionism would screw over these farmers). In addition, foriengers have a little more difficulty finding jobs in the U.S. I read a study from the Heritage Foundation that stated that if foreigners would be able to get jobs, more jobs would be created for Americans (since these foreigners would form their own companies). New foreigners can’t form their own businesses (only after a certain amount of years). There’s more, but this is what I can think of right now.
I wish the Democrats would leave my state. They’re raising the taxes, and shafting middle class peeps here (we have the highest gas prices of all the big cities..Chi town).
Sorry to hear about the high gas prices in your great city. But I have feeling that 5 months and 1 week from now that nobody in your city will be caring how much gas is[for the short term], when they are too busy with the mother of all parties after the Cubs win the world series!!!!!!!
113 · Suki Dillon said
Thanks for reminding me. Good point. Who will care about those gas hikes. I’m anticipating that the city will burn down just like the 1800’s. The next great Chicago fire.
Actually, you sound very naive. These things are more important than you realize because it would be these very ignorant uneducated masses, who end up putting people in the govt (or maybe even assue office :P) a few years down the line, unfortunately, given the way democracy works.
107 · Meena said
meena, i think the problem is that the constituency which would benefit from govt protection plans is different from the constituency that would bear the burden of the higher taxes. not coincidentally, the latter constituency is more politically powerful and also bankrolls political campaigns come election time. at lot of wealthy americans (while being strong contractualists) do not see how they take advantage of the societal infrastructure and complain about taxation. the judicial system, strong law enforcement, basic political freedoms, primary education — all of these make protection of property easier and keep it easy to do business (compare with other bureaucratic regimes where setting up businesses is much harder). the richest in society receive the most benefit from a property- and business-friendly regime and still complain about taxes. often times in public life, a zero-sum rule is operational — if i have a better childhood and more genetic talent (perseverance probably has some genetic component), i get a great job. but that also means one less great job for the public. so — i benefit purely from my luck. in that case, i should realize that i or my offspring could be born unlucky and lose out in the sociobiological lottery, and want some insurance from that bad luck (the intuition that rawls has in the original position or behind the veil of ignorance). while i’m not advocating that every social policy move should increase the benefit of the worst-off, i do think rawls’ arguments support some basic common minimum. forced egalitarianism is certainly not socially optimal (making everyone equal to the detriment of the talented). we have to realize, however, that our system is basically set up to reward the lucky (which is a property that all sets of rules have — the lucky are rewarded regardless :)). but good redistributive policy would be ‘responsibility sensitive’ (ie reward effort) and ‘brute-luck-insensitive’ (ie not reward for abilities) to the extent possible. it might be that we could incentivze the welfare system to achieve this objective. those who make something of their welfare checks would receive some kinds of incentives (the earned income tax credit tries to do that and PRWORA also was legislated with this aim). btw, early childhood interventions (giving education, healthcare, and day-care) to poor children is likely to be the most successful and cost-effective in producing better societal income. most bang for the redistributive buck. (see the evidence of nobelist james heckman, the north carolina abecderian project etc)
110 · Meena said
Isn’t the system in Europe ailenating many non-whites.
that should read ‘brute-luck-insensitive’ (ie not reward for factors which are accidents of birth)
portmanteau, as often in these discussion I don’t partake because I know I’ll be in over my head, such as is the case with your post. I’m not versed at all in the political sciences. I’m just trying to figure out why a slightly similar system like ours won’t work in the USA, and why so many people are against it…
117 · Rahul S said
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blockquote>110 · Meena said
How would that be?
SM Intern, the quote is messed up. The quote was of Rahul and the last line is mine!
119 · Meena said
Look at France. Why are Muslims so isolated over there? I was reading this book America Alone, and it stated that why would a talented Indian or Chinese guy move to Europe now. He said there is no benefit for them to immigrate there. But you would know better since you live there.
Well, I don’t live in France so I’m not into the details about the situation there. Perhaps someone who lives in France would know better. But as I’ve understood it is a combination of both racism and economic factors, plus the government turning a blind eye. Low incomes, lack of opportunities, low education as well. But I don’t know about the complexities of living in France. Although the climate in my own country was somewhat unstable until recently, it’s never been so extreme as in France. People, especially the politicians in power right now, made a big deal of Geert Wilders’ film before the release. Since it came out though it has been mostly met with jaded shrugs from the Muslim community. The younger Muslims are the more radical ones. The Dutch word for ‘foreigner’ is pretty much synonymous with immigrants of Muslim origin. Dutch Indonesians, people from Surinam, Chinese and all other immigrants are not acknowledged in a problematic context. Indians as a community are barely present. Being of Hindu origin, thus not directly involved in the immigration debate, I can see both points of view, though being an atheist and feminist among others I sympathise a bit more with the native Dutch. Also, most Indian families I know here are upper-middle class and well-educated. We have more in common with the Chinese that way. I don’t know if the climate at the moment would favour immigration from India. I have never heard of your book by the way. What is it about? Indian-Americans are in a huge position of privilege, as I’ve stated a few times on this site.
SM Interns, apologies for the off-topicness, but I had to clarify. Feel free to steer this discussion on the right course…
122 · Meena said
It’s about how Muslims in Europe will be duking it out with the Europeans in the years to come. Euro’s have low birth rates, and Muslims (especially the poor) will have high birth rates. Europe is an athiest nation. With Muslims gaining in population in your continent, there will be a huge culture war going on, and thus, America will have to contend with more radical extremism. Therefore, as the world becomes more extremist, America will be alone (as a religious nation, and the one that will continue to hammer down on terrorism).
119 · Meena said
in a nutshell, people are against high taxation/welfare schemes/government support programs because:
my post argues against those points, and i am trying to show how the wealthy should pay more taxes because the government spends a lot of money on the police, the court system, market regulation, environment and education. the wealthy benefit disproportionately from these societal benefits. their property is protected and they can take entrepreneurial risks in a society where contracts are enforced (contrast this with several developing countries where people’s properties are arbitrarily taken away by more powerful people or armed gangs. personal safety is not guaranteed in such countries. doing business and investing in risky activity is out of the question).
secondly, you can engineer a welfare system that gives incentives to people who work hard. poor people who work are granted benefits which the non-working able poor do not receive. some programs in the US have tried to this.
thirdly, a lot of people in this world benefit from good genes and wealthy upbringing. so in some sense, their success is partially due to luck. if these people were born poor, they might not be able to do so well. once the wealthy realize that they or their kids could be born poor, they might be more willing to finance welfare. a chance to make a decent living is a social insurance — we could all find ourselves in an unfortunate position someday.
i hope this post is clearer.
I dunno, Port, (a) we already have a lot of redistribution in the US, and (b) I’ve always found the Wilt Chamberlin hypo pretty compelling. I.e., it’s not just about outcomes, it’s also about the morality of taxation.
rob, i have rawlsian intuitions (that i would want social protection if i get screwed in the endowment lottery), but i am not in agreement with his redistributive formula which seems far too extreme to me. this discussion, especially roemer’s reply in setting limits for redistribution is more in line with my thinking. roemer also emphasizes that equality of outcomes is not what we should want. that is why i emphasized that redistribution should be choice sensitive (responsive to the efforts that people make). that said, the criticism that the us welfare system is poorly-designed is valid. we should be paying more attention to early childhood interventions, rather than remediation later on in life.
ps: i think you should really read this — i think you might enjoy it. it would be fun to argue about it IRL, maybe at a north-east meetup 🙂 also, i might be writing two papers on health care and redistribution — very simple pieces intended for a health policy crowd. and i need a conservative to read and critique them. interested?
It’s about how Muslims in Europe will be duking it out with the Europeans in the years to come. Euro’s have low birth rates, and Muslims (especially the poor) will have high birth rates. Europe is an athiest nation. With Muslims gaining in population in your continent, there will be a huge culture war going on, and thus, America will have to contend with more radical extremism.
I wonder if this is the reason that in most of Europe political groups on the right are becoming more popular. I know it not the PC thing to say but change in the immigration policy may be important for Europe surival.
Thanks for reminding me. Good point. Who will care about those gas hikes. I’m anticipating that the city will burn down just like the 1800’s. The next great Chicago fire.
That will be blamed on some guy named Rex Grossman, who get blamed for anything that goes wrong in Chicago these days.
Port, Not sure how useful I’ll be, but, sure–e-mail them to me when you get the chance. I’ll take a look at the Boston Review pieces, thanks.
rob — thanks muchly, i will email them to you if i get them written with enough margin before deadlines to make changes.
If you are writing about health care & redistribution, be careful that (at least for Rawls) you can’t take one industry (like health care, which, to keep on topic, Jindal is very experienced with 😉 ) behind the veil; the latter is applied for all of society, not individual components thereof.
131 · rob said
yes, of course. have i misrepresented rawls to such an extent that you thought such a pointer was in order? 🙂 the paper is not about rawlsian ideas anyway, but specific policy recommendations. intern — sorry for taking this OT. my apologies. will stop right now.
Just trying to be helpful–seems like a common mistake even in the published literature that I’ve seen–sorry.
127 · Suki Dillon said
Europeans won’t change their immigration policy, and they won’t let Chindians to come. Why would they want to immigrate anyways (more racism there than here). Plus, when the war in Iraq was talked about, Europe was especially against sending in their troops in large numbers because they were afraid of Muslim response (since enraged Muslims in large #’s live there).
128 · Suki Dillon said
Naw naw. Sexy Rexy will be good this year. I’m assuming that we’ll be blaming Mr. Wedlock Lance Briggs, Cedric The Entertainer (Benson), or another Mr. Wedlock (Brian Urlacher). I choose Urlacher because he’s being a bitch lately, and is complaining about his contract (when he has a bad back).
Sorry SM intern…I had to get off topic.
Rahul S, your insight into contemporary Islam is bested only by your impressive knowledge of geography. Are you secretly Daniel Pipes? Don’t be coy now.
136 · DJ Drrrty Poonjabi said
Hey dude, I’m getting my info from these two books: World War IV & and America Alone. Read if you’d like.
Daniel Pipes?
I agree with many of the things that this wise man has to say. I just hope the goverments of many of the countries in Europe would take his advice and have immigration reform or else suffer a slow death.
137 · Rahul S said
He meant your description of Europe as atheist as well as a ‘nation’.
Bingo.
This trend was also true in the 1970s-80s, when non-white immigration (and non-white populations) accounted for less than 10% of the total population of many Western European countries. This is still the case today, with possibly the exception of France, where estimates of the nonwhite (which is not to say, non-French if you account for migration in the context of decolonization) range from an estimated 15-20%. Neo-nationalist and neo-fascist popularity has very little to do with immigration policy, per se, and a lot to do with concepts of nationhood and differential economic integration.
124. portmanteau said
Portmanteau: Thanks for putting it so well. I know I am for universal health care but couldn’t communicate it quite so rationally. I am baffled how a large number skilled workers, who depend on being healthy to be able to survive and pay their health insurance, could be against universal health care. I am not sure what happens if someone gets sick while being in-between jobs. There is no job to pay for health and there is no health to do (find)a job.
Ummm–it’s really very easy, actually, not baffling at all–it’s the same reason that I’m against gov’t-provided food and housing–do I need “3 hots and a cot?”–yes!–but, I’m much better off getting those through capitalistic acts between consenting adults rather than via some sort of bureaucracy (haha, or, bureau-ogamy!!) Let freedom ring!! 😉
This trend was also true in the 1970s-80s, when non-white immigration (and non-white populations) accounted for less than 10% of the total population of many Western European countries. This is still the case today, with possibly the exception of France, where estimates of the nonwhite (which is not to say, non-French if you account for migration in the context of decolonization) range from an estimated 15-20%. Neo-nationalist and neo-fascist popularity has very little to do with immigration policy, per se, and a lot to do with concepts of nationhood and differential economic integration.
I have friends that I have know since high school that live in Holland, Denmark and Sweden. And all them have told me that same story about people in those countries are fed up with the muslim immigrants and there hate for the countries that they live in. My friend in Holland is moving back here to Canada, due to that fact that Amsterdam has he said is turning into a hellhole due the high Muslim population.
143 · rob said
I understand about food and housing since they are expected requirements. They exist for everyone and I am all for choices in what I want eat and where I want to live.
Serious illness (that prevents one from working) is a low probability but high cost event. I am not sure how someone has a “choice” or “freedom” in the illness they get. Perhaps what baffles me is the disregard to the amount of risk involved in a no health insurance position for an average income person.
I am baffled how a large number skilled workers, who depend on being healthy to be able to survive and pay their health insurance, could be against universal health care.
Because they’ve been fooled by the corporate interests, into thinking they’ll turn into some cold-war communist russia, and have to wait 3 hours before they get a single pill.
thirdly, a lot of people in this world benefit from good genes and wealthy upbringing.
this is a good point to make actually. For example, very attractive women fall into this category.
Insurance against catastrophic illness is a good idea, yes. The question is how it’s provided–markets or gov’t. And why anyone needs “insurance” to pay for their yearly physical and bi-yearly teeth-cleanings is beyond me. Though I suppose from a preventative medicine perspective one could make the case that people should be paid to do that!
Nahh, it’s Canada that’s the hobgoblin in the room!
148 · rob said
I’m assuming that you listen to Hannity’s radio talk show. He was talking about teeth cleaning & catastrophic illness insurance today.
LOL–harmonic convergence, I’m afraid–I’m not a big radio guy! Interesting, though! Probably we have the same ultimate source?