Last night, Gov. Bobby Jindal gave one of the most tepid and embarrassing N(non)SOTU responses these eyes have seen. Not only did he offer no new solutions from a party struggling to find itself after two crushing cycles of defeats that have left them without the House, Senate or White House…he also stumbled on his first big introduction to the American people.
Clearly, the GOP wants a new messenger to deliver an old message and that was evident last night. For example, take this passage from Jindal’s speech:
To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you – the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything.
Huh? Empowering you? Who is you? Are ‘you’ one of the 600,000 people who lost their job last month? Are ‘you’ one of the 7.6% of Americans who are out of work? Are ‘you’ able to suck it up and just deal? No, ‘you’ are probably one of the 95% of Americans who will receive a tax cut from the stimulus legislation and ‘you’ are looking to the President and his party to help lift this country out of the ruins of this crushing economic meltdown. These smears on Democrats and false statements from GOP leaders don’t help the GOP move their agenda or their message down the road. They lose credibility because they are tone-deaf. They don’t need a smiley new messenger, they need to re-tool their agenda and present solutions.
I’m not sure how this plays in middle-America, but from where I sit, the speech fell flat. Considering Jindal has already visited Iowa and is expected to seek the GOP nomination in 2012 – this was a failure to launch.
Jason Linkins from the Huffington Post made a perfect comparison and one that I made to my fellow speech watchers during Jindal’s performance. Jason writes:
If it wasn’t such a dead-on comparison it would be catty to say out loud…but there’s no denying it: Bobby Jindal was totally channeling Kenneth The Page from NBC’s 30 Rock tonight. (With maybe a touch of “Moviefone guy.”)
Seriously, it’s uncanny. Close your eyes and see if you can detect any specific difference between Jindal’s opening paragraphs…
Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) has taken himself out of the running to be Barack Obama’s running mate. This comes as a surprise to many DC-types who have longed surmised that Senator Webb would be an effective number two on the Democratic ticket.
This now moves Governor Tim Kaine (also of Virginia) into the top spot in the Matthew J. Slutsky veepstakes.
UPDATE: Marc Ambinder reports that Webb was a finalist on Senator Obama’s short list but refused to participate in the process further when he was asked to submit to a background check.
My brother was on MSNBC a few minutes ago discussing the final hours of the nomination fight between Obama and Clinton. I think he did a good job, but what do I know…I just work here.
Please enjoy this guest post by a FOD (Friend of DoubleSpeak):
The National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournaments require a team to win six games over several weeks. The Democratic National Committee requires a candidate to win 2,025 delegates over a period of many months. In basketball, there is no set number of points a team must score, they simply must score more than their opponent. In the Democratic nominating contest, however, until a candidate gets to the magic number, the game must go on. This is the current situation: barring an unforeseen political gaffe of epic proportions, a scandal, or a tremendous moment of political brilliance, neither Senator Obama nor Senator Clinton is likely to secure the requisite number of delegates through the remaining nominating contests, creating a March Madness just for the Democrats.
Unlike the basketball March Madness, the political March Madness has no controlling body, like the NCAA, that sets clear rules and enforces them to run an efficient tournament. The Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee effectively assured that Republican legislatures in states like Florida could wreak havoc on the legitimacy of the Democratic process. So instead of having selected a nominee with a finite number of contests left to decide the race, the Democrats are now embroiled in an intra-party squabble over which of a half a dozen metrics should be used to decide when the game is over. And instead of the DNC deciding, each team is putting forth their best argument for why the game should end or continue.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, whose popularity plummeted after two hurricanes devastated Louisiana during her term, announced Tuesday that she will not seek re-election.
Blanco has been burdened by the sluggish pace of recovery and by pressure within the Democratic Party, but she said she wanted to push through important initiatives without having to worry about political considerations.
“I am doing this so we can work without interference from election year politics,” she said in a televised appearance from the governor’s mansion Tuesday evening.
She had already broken the news in phone calls to legislative leaders, a meeting with her Cabinet secretaries and in a letter to her staff.
Just last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) was publicly flirting with the idea of a run for the presidency.
The former first lady longs to return to the White House with husband Bill as consort. Only last week she told television viewers America would be led by a woman one day. “Stay tuned,†she said.
The Sunday Times quotes some Democratic insiders, including members of the Clinton team saying that she may forgo a White House bid and decide instead to become a member of the Senate leadership. This after Steve Clemons wrote much the same thing just a month ago.
Friends of Hillary Clinton have been whispering the unthinkable. Despite her status as the runaway frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president, some of her closest advisers say she might opt out of the White House race and seek to lead her party in the Senate.
…
“I would not be surprised if she were to decide that the best contribution she can make to her country is to forget about being president and become a consensus-maker in the Senate,†said a leading Democratic party insider. “She believes there is no trust between the two political sides and that we can’t function as a democracy without it.â€
Only Sen. Clinton knows what Sen. Clinton will decide to do. In November, she’ll have a big decision to make: Play it safe or go for the gold? Either way, she’s going to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate this fall and she will be well positioned, both financially and in terms of her rock-star status, to make a solid run for the Democratic nomination in ‘08. Stay tuned.
“Losing a campaign is tough. But for one who has carried the banner of the Democratic Party for thirty years, has been awarded the party’s nomination to the Senate three times, and has been chosen to fill a Presidential ticket, now it is time to abide the wishes of his electorate and show the same support that the party has shown him over the full course of his career. Senator Lieberman should reject the bitterness of losing and the politics of division and bring the party together for November.
When primaries are over and Democrats in a state have made their choice, all Democratic elected officials, everywhere, have an obligation to coalesce around that choice. Now, the choice is Senator Lieberman’s: will he do the right thing and respect the choice of his party or tarnish a respected career in public service?”
