The US Republican Party has chosen Bobby Jindal to deliver its response to Barack Obama’s presidential address to Congress.
The 37-year old governor of Louisiana - the first Indian-American to occupy such a post - is one of the Republican Party’s rising stars, tipped as a likely contender for the White House four years from now.
Piyush Jindal was born in Baton Rouge, the capital of the southern state of Louisiana, to Indian parents who had immigrated from the Punjab. He started calling himself Bobby from an early age and converted from Hinduism to Catholicism as a teenager.
After a spell at Oxford University and with the international consultancy firm, McKinsey, he was hired by Louisiana’s governor to fix the state’s healthcare problems.
He is credited with steering Louisiana’s healthcare system towards a surplus after years of multi-million-dollar budget deficits.
His management skills attracted Washington’s attention - and led President George W Bush to give him a top job in the Health and Human Services Department.
He resigned from that post in 2003 to return to Louisiana and run for governor. Early politics
Narrowly beaten by the Democratic Party candidate, Kathleen Blanco, he decided a few weeks later to run for Congress in one of the state’s most conservative districts, winning with 78% of the vote.
It was the first congressional election win for an Indian-American in almost 50 years, and was widely interpreted as a sign that America’s Indian community, already well-known for successes in business and education, had finally come of political age.
Mr Jindal called it “the ultimate embodiment of the American dream”.
In 2007, Mr Jindal announced his candidacy for governor of Louisiana. His former rival, Democrat Kathleen Blanco, had decided not to run again after widespread criticism of her office’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Mr Jindal took an early lead in the polls and managed to remain the favourite throughout the race, defeating 11 other candidates in the primary.
In 2008, Mr Jindal became, at 36, the youngest sitting governor in the United States and the first ever Indian-American governor.
Only a few months into his tenure, Governor Jindal oversaw one of the largest evacuations in US history when Hurricane Gustav was threatening the Louisiana coastline. He pulled out of a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention to co-ordinate the evacuation effort. Conservative values
As governor, Bobby Jindal has made a name for himself among conservatives in the Republican Party.
The anti-abortion group, National Right to Life Committee, credits him with a 100% anti-abortion voting record.
Mr Jindal has also expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage and voted No to human embryonic stem cell research.
A devout Catholic, he supports the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
But his appeal is not confined to the conservative wing of the party. His platform of cracking down on government waste and corruption has helped endear him to the Republican party as a whole.
In contrast to his predecessor in the job, Mr Jindal has also drawn praise for his efforts to spearhead recovery efforts in Louisiana after the devastation following Hurricane Katrina.
During the 2008 race for the US presidency, Mr Jindal was widely talked about as Senator John McCain’s potential choice for the post of vice-president.
In the end, he lost out to another governor: Alaska’s Sarah Palin. Party insiders said that at 37 he was just too young to be considered for such a senior post. Standard-bearer
But since John McCain only won 31% of the Hispanic vote - compared to George W Bush’s 44% in 2004 - the party has become increasingly sensitive to the need to attract more ethnic minorities to its ranks.
Having a standard-bearer, such as Bobby Jindal, in a party which has found itself becoming older and whiter in recent years, is a huge advantage. Speaking about his future plans, Mr Jindal has said his focus is on re-election as Louisiana governor in 2011. He has refused to be drawn on the question of whether he will run for his party’s nomination for president in four years’ time - but already analysts are speculating that the US’s African-American president could face an Indian-American challenge.
Mr Jindal has also expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage and voted No to human embryonic stem cell research.
A devout Catholic, he supports the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
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Mr Jindal has also expressed **his opposition to same-sex marriage **and voted No to human embryonic stem cell research.
A devout Catholic, he supports the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
Jindal’s delivery was weak in this sense: he did not look like someone who could lead this country. He did not instill in me any confidence that he would or could be the standard-bearer in four or eight years, which I was looking for. I wanted him to do well. But he didn’t. … He came across as the guy you’d want to have your daughter bring home, but not the guy you’d want leading your company during tough times.
Face it, it was a poor performance. He may be a nice enough guy but he had a shot and he blew it
Well, I am just curious to see if the voters get tired of "all talk no action" Obama by 2012 and decide to give Bobby Jindal a chance :)
If Obama is all talk and no action then the GOP should be elected in 2012. He's 35 days into this, the gears are being put in place. Your criticizing the meal when you've only just got a description of the appetizer. The GOP is lost right now, they want to say they aren't into big government spending but over 2/3rds of the national debt has been built under their watch and no one has forgot the last 8 years under Bush. They are to focused on creating/finding a new identity for the 2010 midterms.
His speech was ****ing atrocious last night.. Did he really attack volcano research? Seriously? The guy looks like a goober, sounds like a moron, believes in creationism (and thinks it should be taught in schools), used Katrina as an example that government doesn't work despite the fact that it happened during a Republican administration, and he can't deliver a speech to save his life. He's like a cross between George Bush and John Kerry... He's dumb like Bush, but boring like Kerry. At least Bush could make a joke every now and then.
NEW YORK (AP) — Insane. Childish. Disaster. And those were some of the kinder comments from political pundits about Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his response to President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night. Jindal, 37, a Rhodes scholar and son of Indian immigrants, is considered a rising star in Republican ranks and a likely 2012 presidential candidate.
GOP leaders, looking for a fresh face for the party’s image, tapped Jindal earlier this month for the high-profile task of rebutting Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress.
But in both style and substance, Jindal’s speech has drawn flak from Republicans and Democrats alike.
His criticism of government spending for emergency economic relief has been widely panned, especially given his state’s receipt of billions in federal assistance after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And Jindal’s voice and earnest, awkward delivery have drawn comparisons to Kenneth Parcell, the geeky page on the NBC comedy “30 Rock.”
He was told in childhood Americans can do anything. Sure but this guy keeps repeated throughout his so called speech to an obsessed level.
No intelligence, not depth or substance in the content, no cohesiveness or link to sentences.
Discord between sentences and delivery.
Monotonous and boring like the lecture at primary school.
He even made fun of his home state by discussing indictment part even though he thought it was cool to say that positively that its not true anymore. That was low for a governor of a sate to bring up such a thing about his own home state.