Should Bobby Jindal quit as LA governer to accept Vice President nomination?

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Should Bobby Jindal quit as LA governer to accept Vice President nomination for John McCain. McCain needs a young dynamic non-White candidate. He himself is old and cancer patient compared to Obama and Hillary.

But wouldnt Louisiana’s voters feel cheated if Bobby Jindal accept McCain VP nomination? He has been governer for less than one year.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080050715

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be spending the Memorial Day weekend at Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s ranch in Arizona.

The invitation has lead to speculation that McCain may be considering Jindal as his vice president and there are reasons for it as well.

If Barak Obama’s rapid rise from a promising freshman senator to his party’s all-but-official Presidential candidate is a sign of a new generation taking over in the Democratic Party, Bobby Jindal represents the same for the Republicans.

At 36, this second-generation Indian-American Rhodes Scholar is America’s youngest governor in a southern state with a long history of racial discrimination.

The advantages of having the Louisiana Governor on the McCain ticket are clear. To compete against Barack Obama and his message of change, 71-year-old McCain needs a young vice president and one who is committed to doing things differently.

A Hindu by birth, Jindal converted to Roman Catholicism as a teenager. He is a fervent opponent of embryonic stem cell research and abortion and even favours teaching ‘‘intelligent design’’ in schools as an alternative to evolution.

This could help win votes among evangelicals who have not yet warmed up to McCain because of his moderate views.

Jindal is just four months into his term as governor and from his standpoint. The key question is why would he want to run in a year when the odds are against the GOP?

Robert Shapiro, Professor of American politics at Columbia University, explains that it is a win-win situation for Jindal.

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Re: Should Bobby Jindal quit as LA governer to accept Vice President nomination?

Trying to warm up to evangelicals by selecting a non-white Catholic that converted from Hinduism? Now that's a stretch.

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Re: Should Bobby Jindal quit as LA governer to accept Vice President nomination?

Yes , ofcourse.

I have some outside suspicion that McCain likes him.

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Who wins if Bobby Jindal gets tapped for veep?
Thomas Lifson

While many conservatives are excited at the prospect of Bobby Jindal appearing on the ticket with John McCain, back home in Louisiana all politics is still local. Governor Jindal has just began his first term as governor, with a massive reform agenda to implement, and many Louisianans do not want him to go. Opponents can’t wait to be rid of him, of course.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune’s blog Briefing Book took note this way:

Even before word leaked out that Gov. Bobby Jindal would meet Friday with presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, lawmakers enjoyed a few laughs Wednesday as they distributed bumper stickers reading “Jindal for V.P.” Sen. Joe McPherson, D-Woodworth, took credit for the blue and white campaign paraphernalia. “You may question my motivation on this, but don’t question my sincerity,” McPherson said.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/05/22/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-bobby-jindal.html

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Re: Should Bobby Jindal quit as LA governer to accept Vice President nomination?

I think they want a Obama like historic speech from a young governer in upcoming GOP convention to revamp the party among young voters. The party's image is severly damaged by 12 years of Sr./Jr. Bush administration, it has become a broker for energy sector. The old corrupt politicians and lobbyist must go. Obama's change message is really kicking in young and independent voters despite of all the negative attacks he has withstood in last 8 weeks.

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I Can’t Like Bobby Jindal
Why can’t I like Bobby Jindal?

After all, the Louisiana governor, whose ethnic background I share, seems to be going places. At the grand old age of thirty-six, he’s on the shortlist for being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. (Talk about an age gap!) He made history as the first Indian-American governor earlier this year (the second Asian-American governor ever on the mainland), and became a Congressman at the age of thirty-three.

Jindal is a wunderkind. By the time he was twenty-five, he was the secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals for the state of Louisiana, an astonishing achievement. He’s a graduate of Brown and a Rhodes Scholar.

So, in spite of all his accomplishments, why don’t I care more for him?

The answer has to do with Jindal’s obnoxious views. Jindal has embraced a really conservative version of Christianity, which he converted to as a teenager. He launched his first, failed gubernatorial bid in 2003 while standing besides Louisiana Christian Coalition leader Billy McCormack. One of his radio ads in that campaign asked, “What’s so wrong with the Ten Commandments?” He has stated that he is “100 percent against abortion, no exceptions.” He has supported the teaching of intelligent design and opposed stem-cell research. He is backing as governor a statehouse bill, with the Orwellian title of the Louisiana Science Education Act, to allow intelligent design in schools, as Clancy DuBos, the editor of the Gambit Weekly in New Orleans, informs me.

His ultra-conservative outlook is not limited to faith-related issues. He is adamantly pro-gun, for instance, and favors a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning.

“Anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-secular, pro-war, anti-science . . . the list is endless,” wrote Professor Vijay Prashad for the Progressive Media Project when Jindal was sworn in as governor a few months ago. “Jindal is not only at the extreme end of the Republican spectrum, but he continues to be a loyal soldier in the Bush army.”

So extreme that, as Prashad points out, he stooped to using timeworn coded racist language to deride Jena protesters as “outside agitators.”

And Jindal has run away from his Indian heritage as a way to ingratiate himself with the majority. Shashi Tharoor, former U.N. undersecretary general, reveals that Jindal once mangled the pronunciation of his own brother’s name while accepting an award. As a Congressman, Jindal pointedly skipped a function organized by the Indian community to commemorate Diwali, the festival of lights, the biggest religious celebration among Hindus. (Not that this has stopped him from showing up at Indian-American fundraising events.)

“Indians beam proudly at another Indian-American success story to go along with Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams, Hargobind Khorana and Subramaniam Chandrasekhar, Kal Penn and Jhumpa Lahiri,” writes Tharoor. “But none of these Indian Americans expressed attitudes and beliefs so much at variance with the prevailing values of their community.”

I really wish I could be more fond of Jindal, especially since he is now in the running for the second-highest office in the land, a startling achievement for someone who is a member of a tiny ethnic minority and so young. But his ideology keeps coming in between.