What About Jindal?
Though rarely explicit (and certainly not exclusive) a large portion of the GOP’s closing argument this cycle has been to stoke white, working class fear and suspicion of the Other. The dark-skinned man with the foreign-sounding name may be a Muslim, or a socialist, or a friend of terrorists, or a racial huckster, or a fake U.S. citizen, or some other vague kind of “radical.” You may never be sure which he is (maybe all of the above), but in your gut you simply don’t “know” him the way you know the other candidates. This is not, to put it mildly, a message likely to benefit Bobby Jindal. ~Chris Orr
I agree with Ross that this is completely wrong. As with so many of the controversies of this year, the increasingly negative Republican reaction to Obama from the start of the year until now has been tied directly to the growing perception that Obama was insufficiently Americanist such that he has been regularly described as someone who does not believe in American exceptionalism. The idea that he does not believe in American exceptionalism happens to be as false as it is widespread, as any brief survey of Obama’s public remarks would make clear. (What Americanists on the right forget is that American exceptionalism survives because it is a widely shared, albeit misguided, idea that has adherents across the political spectrum.) Even all of the rumors and chain e-mails that cast doubt on Obama’s background were aimed at denying or questioning his Americanness because there was a presumption that an antiwar left-liberal Democrat (a veritable neo-McGovernite in the fantasies of some Republicans) was not Americanist enough or at all and it is this supposed lack of Americanism that makes Republicans revile him as much as they do. As a source of anti-Obama sentiment, this has always been more important than his left-leaning politics or any specific part of his domestic agenda. To some extent, it is not possible to disentangle Obama’s heritage, his particular experience of liberal Protestantism and his politics, but for the most part what has troubled Republicans, or at least what Republicans have focused on, is mainly the anti-Americanism of his past associates. Even in the last sputtering gasps of the McCain campaign, the socialist charge is one last attempt to link Obama to an ideology that has often been defined as a foreign import.
Now let’s turn to Jindal. The response to him on the right today and in the future would naturally be entirely different. It is worth remembering that some members of the Louisiana Democratic Party made a lame attempt to use Jindal’s given name, Piyush, to make him seem foreign and unfamiliar to Louisiana voters. This attempt failed, and it is unlikely that Jindal would face this kind of attack were he to run in presidential primaries in the future. At first glance, you might think that Jindal’s conversion to Catholicism and Obama’s to Protestantism could conjure up similar concerns about previous beliefs and upbringing, but in case this needs to be spelled out Jindal is doubly immunized against the sort of absurd attacks that have been used against Obama: converting from Hinduism to Catholicism provides him with all of the advantages of being recognized as a fellow Christian and there are also no real lingering doubts about his previous religion. Most Americans may know little about that religion, but they hardly ever associate it with violence and as far as they are concerned it poses absolutely no threat to them. As the child of immigrants, Jindal might seem to be at a similar disadvantage as Obama, and perhaps even at more of a disadvantage because both of his parents are from India, but his is the conventional story of assimilation and success that most Republicans respond to quite favorably. It is hard to remember now, but mainstream conservatives were at one time practically falling over themselves in their admiration of Obama’s personal story as a testament to America as the land of opportunity. This was quickly replaced by fear and loathing once they were convinced that he was a patriot of an unrealized, ideal America rather than America “as it exists.” There will be the same gushing enthusiasm for Jindal’s success story, but instead of this being replaced by the fear that Palin expressed when she said that Obama does not see America the same way she and her audience see America, Jindal will receive the added boost from the recognition that he does see America the same way Palin and her audience do.
The different treatment seems somewhat arbitrary, and up to a point it is, but it turns in an important way on how Jindal’s reformism is viewed when compared to Obama’s rhetoric of change. Jindal’s agenda is interpreted on the right as essentially the repair of existing institutions, because his Americanism is not doubted because he does not subscribe to (and most important he is not portrayed as subscribing to) anti-American views. The assumption that Obama is insufficiently Americanist derives largely from those associations the GOP has flogged so futilely this year. This kind of attack would have been deployed against any Democratic nominee, and this kind of attack would pretty much never be used against a fellow Republican unless a candidate were to go out on a limb and, say, oppose an ongoing war or in some other way fundamentally question the morality or wisdom of government policy overseas. Jindal has not done and is not going to do that, so it is rather unlikely that he will have to contend with anything like the smears and falsehoods that have been used against Obama. If he runs into a serious problem in the early caucuses and primaries, it is more likely to be the product of anti-Catholicism among some conservative Protestants that undermined Sam Brownback’s efforts to cultivate social conservative support this time around.
And, not to take away from your points, but the specter of Sarah Palin’s unwed teenage daughter getting wrapped in the flag of the pro-abstention religious Right is but one of the many recent demonstrations of the endless capacity of that political faction to overlook any standard or prejudice, no matter how deeply felt, when it is to the benefit of someone on the “team”. It is like watching a New York or Boston sports fan magically change their opinion of a “colorful” player as soon as he gets traded to the home ballclub.
I’m with you, Pacific Moderate. I reacted to Orr’s article the same way I reacted to Chait’s explanation of why Palin would be such a strong candidate in 2012. Both Chait and Orr started from the assumption that the various talking points and attacks on display in this campaign, and some voters’ reactions to those tactics, represent deep-seeded Republican values. In fact, I suspect that most of them represent opportunism, and the tendency of people to think up “reasons” for disliking people who just rub them the wrong way.
I get that these guys have been writing about the ’08 presidential election since mid-2006, if not earlier, and are therefore quite justifiably burned out and looking for something else to discuss. But they’re jumping the gun on this. Politicians are amoral, opportunistic, and inclined to rouse the rabble. There’s no reason to believe that anything Republicans are saying and doing in this election has any predictive power for future elections.
What do you think of Jindal’s politics, Daniel? You’re right that he won’t offer any serious change in terms of foreign policy, but is there a chance that he’d run as a counterpoint to neoconservatism (or Bushism, anyway)? His (inexcusable) vote for the 2006 Military Commissions Act is the biggest black eye I’ve seen on his record – do you think he has a chance to offer something genuinely better than most of what the GOP has been putting forward?
I don’t know. How hard of a whisper campaign would it take from Palin to start the “he’s an ARAB” rumor about Jindal? Palin has a history of using wedge issues to get the upper hand, e.g., forcing the incumbent mayor of Wasilla to produce a marriage license because his wife kept her maiden name, insinuating that he was Jewish and not Christian. She has already shown that these kinds of tactics are not beneath her. Obama wouldn’t use this character assassination, but he won’t have to. Palin will start it up for him in the primaries and it won’t stop before Election Day, should Jindal survive and win the nomination.
And the other more important reason why Orr is wrong. Jindal already has the blessing of Rush Limbaugh. :) So the same people that rally around Palin will also rally around Jindal. The Jindals and Palins are the future of the Republican Party.
“do you think he has a chance to offer something genuinely better than most of what the GOP has been putting forward?”
Not really, which is another reason why I think he has a good shot at the nomination. The successful approach that Obama has pioneered seems to be this: don’t make voters accept too many changes all at once. Jindal would represent a pretty significant shift for GOP nominees: Southern and non-white (they have never had either for a nominee). To ask the rank-and-file to endorse a major change in policies might be asking too much on top of all that. This is one reason why Jindal will be considered a safe and acceptable candidate.
Obama is a conventional liberal, and Jindal is by and large a conventional conservative in the party line mold, but I think this is how Obama has been and Jindal may be able to appeal to the general electorate. Having their respectives party base secured by the very conventionality is what makes them viable national candidates. It is also what makes them uninteresting to me, but they are not trying to win my vote.
Will Jindal be a bold policy innovator in Louisiana and then in a national campaign? Who knows? He might surprise me. On the whole, I think he doesn’t have to be much of a policy innovator, and if he can frame his successes in reforming government in Louisiana (assuming that he racks up quite a few) as a vindication of his conventional conservatism he will flourish in a political climate in the GOP that is going to reward a back-to-basics candidate.
As for dirty tricks again Jindal, someone might try them but I think you will be amazed at how temporary Palinmania will be when there is an alternative of a clearly superior reforming governor. The enthusiasm for Palin was the product of deeply demoralized Republicans looking for something to get excited about. Given a choice at another time, many Republicans are going to take an interest in non-Palin candidates.
And, to anticipate the inevitable complaint that I know someone will want to make, yes it is fairly ridiculous to be talking about the next election before this one is over.
I don’t know. How hard of a whisper campaign would it take from Palin to start the “he’s an ARAB†rumor about Jindal? Palin has a history of using wedge issues to get the upper hand
I’ll just preface this by saying that I don’t believe any of the various rumors about Obama. That said….
Obama is MUCH more susceptible to this kind of smear campaign than Jindal would be. Obama’s father was a Muslim, Obama spent part of his childhood in a majority-Muslim country, to the extent that he could point to his Christianity as a defense that just allowed his enemies to run videotape of his dashiki-clad pastor screaming “Goddamn America,” etc. On top of that, many of Obama’s supporters made the blunder of running off at the mouth about how Obama could bridge the gap between the US and the Muslim world, etc.
I don’t know much about Jindal, but it seems like it would be much harder to lie about who he is. His religious background seems pretty clear, he grew up in the United States, and his parents are from a country and a heritage about which most Americans don’t have any negative preconceptions. Plus, he talks like a good ole boy, whereas Obama’s professorial tone marks him as someone who can be attacked as “other than.”
It’s also worth keeping in mind that, even with a candidate (Obama) who was taylor-made to be undone by attacks on his “American-ness,” these smear tactics will probably fail and Obama will probably win big. It’s not necessarily an approach begging to be re-tried in four years.
Steve Schmidt was able to get people in South Carolina to think that Bridget was McCain’s illegitimate black child. And Bridget clearly looks South Asian. I think you overestimate the “pro-America” part of this country.
I would really love to believe that Palinmania would die but she has the advantage of being a woman and garnering the women’s vote. Every problem Obama had against Palin, Jindal could realistically have too – the sexism lie/smear works to her advantage as both sword and shield. If she resurfaces with Schmidt/Rove like tricks, Jindal could easily succumb because this part of the country is all to willing to believe the worst about anyone foreign.
“Jindal would represent a pretty significant shift for GOP nominees: Southern and non-white (they have never had either for a nominee).”
Woah, “W” isn’t Southern enough? Are we talking Southern, East o the Mississippi only and South of the Mason-Dixon exclusively?
McCain was smeared horribly in South Carolina, but I’m not sure it can be assumed that he lost because of those smears. More likely he lost because he had positioned himself as the Republican you vote for if you oppose “agents of intolerance,” etc. Not a winning message in South Carolina.
So, again, there’s a difference between saying that people would try nasty tactics against Jindal and saying that those tactics have a prayer of succeeding. I think they’d fail, because–unlike McCain or Obama–Jindal (despite his skin color) is pretty clearly a southerner and a social conservative. Maybe anti-Catholic attacks would have traction in some parts of the country; that seems more likely than that he’d be attacked for being non-white or non-Christian.
I would really love to believe that Palinmania would die but she has the advantage of being a woman and garnering the women’s vote. Every problem Obama had against Palin, Jindal could realistically have too
But Palin’s a national laughingstock and Obama/Biden is set to crush her ticket next Tuesday. So a candidate in 2012 might be happy to have the same “problem” with Palin that Obama is having. And, again, once it’s a free-for-all primary and voters can pick from a variety of candidates, I suspect that the GOP’s stated reasons for loving Sarah Palin will suddenly seem much less important to the vast majority of voters.
McCain lost South Carolina for a number of reasons. Just as he did this time, he was running for the nomination from the center-left of the GOP and Bush was able to define himself (despite being something of a moderate) as the conservative in the race. Bush’s dirty tricks did not hurt Bush, but I don’t know how much support it took away from McCain. I think people underestimate how much more important religious and cultural cleavages are in GOP primary elections. These cleavages largely work to Jindal’s advantage outside the South, and his Southern background helps him in Southern primaries.
To the extent that Bush is really a Texan, Bush is from west Texas, which is not all that Southern. Jindal, like Huckabee, is culturally much more Southern. Technically, both Presidents Bush hail from a state in the Old Confederacy, but certainly no one would call the father a Southerner; I would say that the son shouldn’t be called that, either.
Palin is a national laughingstock but that doesn’t matter, apparently, with the base. They love her. She fires them up and validates who they are. They are sold on the idea that she has been treated unfairly by the media, and that she’s not a “diva.” She is a monster in the making. I agree that McCain’s own sensibilities probably did him in, but the smear certainly did not help!
Knowing Palin for the wedge-issue campaigner that she is, she will be a more formidable contender four years from now thanks to having more time to think about national issues. She is a savvy politician, if not the most intelligent or curious. For a large part of this country, that doesn’t matter. And that’s why, at least in the primary, even Jindal is at risk.
Jindal would represent a pretty significant shift for GOP nominees: Southern and non-white (they have never had either for a nominee).
It would also be the first time since GHWB that the GOP had nominated someone with an impressive academic record. Can’t have that damn elitism. Who knows, at Oxford Jindal might even have palled around with socialists?
Snark aside, I agree that Jindal is a formidable potential candidate for 2012. Assuming he runs, and gets the coveted dittohead endorsement early enough (yeah, I know he has El Rushbo’s but the mass still is with the Divine Miss P; obviously we have a couple of years to go before we see how the correlation of forces settles out), he could indeed but the standardbearer of whatever constitutes the “movement” at that time.
The problem that I think you [Daniel] underestimate is that Jindal doesn’t (IMHO) appeal to the id, or really to resentment either. _That’s_ what stirs up the base, or so it certainly appears. That won’t be a fatal weakness in the primary only if there is nobody opposing who can tap the id.
Who knows, at Oxford Jindal might even have palled around with socialists?
He should tell people that he thought he was accepting an invitation to study in Oxford, Mississippi.
If he palled around with socialists, I’m sure Palin will exploit that.
“Who knows, at Oxford Jindal might even have palled around with socialists?”
Worse–he may have had contact with people from “Old Europe”! That is scary.
“The problem that I think you [Daniel] underestimate is that Jindal doesn’t (IMHO) appeal to the id, or really to resentment either.”
Jindal may not be viscerally appealing in some ways, but there is another side to Republicans that prizes aspiration and (much to my dismay) optimism when it comes from someone on their side. Palin riles up the crowd, but Jindal has the potential to inspire and perhaps even persuade newcomers. If you can have a candidate who generates enthusiasm and is also prepared and knowledgeable, that is the candidate who will prevail. The candidate with both charisma and wonkery tends to win.
Charlie -
I yield.
Daniel -
The candidate with both charisma and wonkery tends to win.
As long as the moneycons are OK with him, yeah (otherwise you have Huckabee, who for my money has both to spare).
Serious question – do you think Jindal has charisma (that is, that the GOP base responds to him as charismatic, particularly in a Weberian sense, as applied to politics)? I don’t see it in the couple of Youtubes I’ve seen of his gubernatorial campaign, but then my ears detect different dogwhistles, I guess, since the only major party candidates since W. Clinton that seem at all charismatic to me are Obama and Huckabee, maybe Buchanan a little bit. I just don’t see Palin as charismatic (which has nothing to do with policy disagreement; I have no problem in seeing charisma in candidates I disagree with, for example Huckabee and Reagan).