“My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” quipped John Adams of the vice presidency over 200 years ago.
Not much has changed since the late 1700s (Dick Cheney is quite an anomaly historically), but the VP slot is surely more important the older the presidential nominee is. Thus, more so than Barack Obama, John McCain had better choose well his VP and that choice should be Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a real up-and-comer in the party.
Why? First of all, the guy can talk. Just look him up on YouTube and listen for yourself. Jindal speaks quickly and powerfully on his feet. His is not the fluffy eloquence of a pre-packaged Obama speech, but he can do that too. He is just the kind of talent the McCain camp is going to need if it is to exploit the hypnotic change-mania that has gripped much of the country.
If there was ever a state that needed change, it is Louisiana, and he has capitalized on the change rhetoric in his own campaigns. “I suspect that some of those who oppose making big changes in Louisiana government will try to mount a counter-offensive…. But before we can change the direction of our state, we all have to change our current mindset. We have to defeat cynicism…. We can change. We must change. We will change…. [C]hange is not just on the way: Change begins tonight!” declared Jindal upon claiming victory for the governorship.
Next, McCain can’t win the election without a better outreach to the conservative base, and he has done a poor job thus far. If anybody can excite the base and get them out to the polls for McCain, Jindal is the one to do it. He has a 100% pro-life voting record and an “A” from Gun Owners of America. He campaigned for governor on cutting taxes among other issues. Rush Limbaugh has gone so far as to call him “the next Ronald Reagan.” The battle against Obama for independents will be formidable, so finding a way to win over staunch conservatives is a must.
At 37, Jindal is even younger than Obama by about a decade (helping McCain diffuse the age issue) yet has a much longer and more impressive resume than the Democratic nominee. Brace yourself for a deluge of experience: He graduated with honors from Brown University in biology and public policy and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford who turned down admission to medical and law schools at both Harvard and Yale. At McKinsey and Company, Jindal consulted Fortune 500 companies. Two years later he was appointed the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and another two years later appointed Executive Director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. Jindal’s particular background in health care, which is sure to be an important issue this election, couldn’t be more timely.
From there he went on to serve as the president of the University of Louisiana System and then the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in 2001. Only then did he begin a career as an elected representative to Congress serving two terms and winning his reelection with an incredible 88% of the vote! As governor of Louisiana, his approval ratings have reached as high as a whopping 77%.
And to top it off, no matter how hard we try to ignore it, race will likely be an issue in the presidential campaign. It can only help to have a person of color on the Republican ticket when campaigning against an historic opponent, an African American. Don’t expect much of a shift in the black vote, but it will be much easier to deflect the perennial accusations of Republican racism with an Indian-American at McCain’s side.
In short, Jindal is the youthful, articulate, reforming, conservative, and accomplished rock star that the Republican Party desperately needs in the fight against the predicted blue political tide this November and in the effort to bring the party itself back to its winning principles.
Help us Bobby Jindal, you’re our only hope.
Conservative Colloquium 