Bobby Jindal Revolution?
I’ve posted before about Bobby Jindal being less conservative than people think. Charlie Buras at The Old River Road has more, although he correctly concludes,”In the big scheme of things, the problem is not that these agencies failed. The problem is that in a time of crisis we put our faith in them to save us.”
That’s certainly true. But I also object to the media image of Jindal being built as the great savior of the GOP. He’s undeniably more conservative than McCain. But that’s a very low bar. When he was in Congress, I sent more than a few thank you notes for various things he voted on. I have never missed an opportunity to vote for him, and I always had a sign in my yard for him. But as Governor, he’s disappointed me in some key areas, notably his reluctance to veto the pay raises and his reluctance to dial back the Stelly taxes. His Potemkin ethics reforms are a disgrace. Those things should have been no-brainers and he flubbed them.
He was given credit for being some kind of wunderkind for running the show adequately during Gustav, but the facts are less clear.
At a shelter in Monroe, 100 patients — some in need of dialysis and breathing treatments — sat on a bus soiling themselves the day the hurricane hit because wheelchairs and adequate medical staff were not on hand….
A review of several thousand pages of e-mails obtained by The Advocate from the state Department of Social Services also points to problems with delivering evacuees to shelters and returning them home.
…the e-mails appear to show failures by other state agencies — specifically, the state Department of Transportation and Development and the state Department of Health and Hospitals. Both those agencies are run by cabinet secretaries Jindal personally recruited from other states….
Mind you, he beats Blanco hands-down. But that bar is so low a toddler could hurdle it with ease. I’m rooting for Bobby, but his reputation is outpacing his performance and that is worrisome if he’s really looking ahead to 2012. I don’t want him to be the straw man that Obama easily knocks down.
But...
I couldn’t care less about the pay raise for legislators, the weak ethics rules, or some minor problems with evacuation — but the proposed $240 expansion of medicine for poor people bothers me. It sounds like Jindal is George Bush III.
Even McCain voted against the Medicare expansion.
I guess maybe I’ll start routing more strongly for Palin in 2012, or maybe the Florida guy.