You can smell the desperation:
When you have a candidate few people really like, whose support is a mile wide and an inch deep, whose raison d’etre (a 4am fancy word) is fixing an economy that is fixing itself without him, and who only wins his actual, factual home state by three percentage points against a guy no one took seriously only two months ago, there really is little reason for independent voters in the general election to choose him if the economy keeps improving.
Seriously, putting it bluntly, conservatives may not like Barack Obama, but most other people do. And when faced with a guy you like and a guy you don’t like who says he can fix an economy that no longer needs fixing, you’re going to go with the guy you like.
If Republicans in Washington are not panicked and trying desperately to pull Bobby Jindal in the race tomorrow, or someone like him, the party leaders must have a death wish.
Why on earth do they think this guy has a chance:
Do they not understand that SOTU response was fatal for Jindal?
*** Update ***
Ahh, shit. I should have refreshed the dashboard panel before posting. AL already covered this.
ShadeTail
As Dr. Krugman shrilly pointed out this morning, this has been building for a while.
David Hunt
I just posted this in the previous thread, but I think that it belongs here more than there:
Serious Answer? I think that Erikson simply likes Bobby J so he assumes that the rest of the Republican Base will like him too. He’s succumbed to a disease that is endemic to the TV gasbags commenting on politics: he’s assuming that his personal views/prejudices are highly representative of the general population…at least the general Republican voter population. Add to this the fact that Jindal hasn’t had to withstand the scrutiny that even Republicans have to endure if they want to be President. If he had, I’m sure that a few zombies would emerge from his metaphorical closet. Normally they’d be skeletons, but he’s the governor of Louisiana, afterall.
iriedc
I guess they don’t expect the volcano states to be in play.
David Koch
Tooo Funny.
Senator Man-on-Dog’s surrogates are blaming the Michigan loss on…… wait for it…. MSNBC.
HA!
as if the knuckle dragging base who votes at these things, watch MSNBC and not Fox.
Gin & Tonic
Nothing is fatal forever. If Dick Fucking “you won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” Nixon could be elected POTUS twice, then Jindal’s bad speech is not even a bump in the road.
Dr. Loveless
I can’t wait for the great debate on volcano monitoring.
Bunt
Ot, just heard the Steelers are releasing Ward. Sorry John.
dollared
Hung convention, then Christie or McMitch. Then add $3B in cash in less than 500 donations.
It will happen. It is scary. Because the media will love the drama, and will work like dogs to 1) get the Republicans to spend all that money on ads, and 2) make it a horserace.
schrodinger's cat
OMG they could run Jindal with Olympia Snowe and that would sink Obama’s reelection chances. Also it is snowing in New England and the roads are slippery, and the gas prices are going to hit elebenty billion, this is bad news for Obama.
/puts away the troll mask.
How did I do?
MikeJ
@iriedc:
Or any state downwind. We might bet the lahar here in Washington, but the ash is going to ground planes to the Rockies and beyond.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
They don’t. This is just the GOP playing rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock with themselves. Only they haven’t figured out all the rules yet. And their Spock is actually the mummified remains of a 17th Century Roman Catholic Bishop.
kindness
Jindal offers the right a couple things.
1) he’s darker skinned than they are.
2) they think he’d make a great marionette.
3) he’s dark skinned.
Really, that’s it. The right doesn’t think too deeply I’m afraid.
MikeJ
@dollared: completely OT, but have you hear of the latest seattle meetup?
BGinCHI
I bet EE never thought he’d be concern trolling his own party.
If E sonof E had an Emo band, what would it be called?
dollared
@MikeJ: Thanks for reminding! I heard March 10, but not a time and place.
The Ancient Randonneur
Well, two down and seven to go! Any chance we can get the remaining front pagers to weigh in on this?
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: E-cubed?
salacious crumb
on a slightly different note, a sad one, please keep these people in your prayers tonight..
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bonus-withdrawal-puts-bankers-malaise-050100338.html
Steve Earle Bruce Springsteen
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I don’t think we should get too cocky about Obama’s chances in the general just yet. Yes, Romney sucks, for reasons everyone with a brain understands. But can you imagine the amount of stupid that is going to flow this summer, when gas prices hit $4.50+ a gallon nationwide? The DRILL BABY DRILL and gas tax holiday goons will be out in full-force by mid-May at the latest. It’ll make Birtherism look like a MENSA meeting. If the economy slows down at all in response, independents who haven’t paid serious attention to the news in four years will hop on the Romney wagon. Again, I might just be paranoid I just think we’re too far out to go all LOL ROMNEY just yet.
TL; DR: someone hold me and tell me it’s gonna be alright
Russ
discussion at work today with big Ron Paul supporter, had pamphlets and stickers and during our discussion where he was selling Ron to me as a good POTUS candidate I said that although you like him and all that he will not be the nominee and he then says “well if that happens then I’ll vote for Obama because they other possible choices are all crazy”
BGinCHI
@salacious crumb: Praying for smiting, with extra hand of God sauce.
JWL
“Do they not understand that SOTU response was fatal for Jindal”?
You got that right. That night Jindal looked like Jerry Seinfeld did in that episode in which a bad haircut made him look like a 12 year old. The gibberish Jindal spewed was just the icing on the cake.
Craig
What the GOP really needs is a good old-fashioned exorcism. I wonder if there’s anyone at hand who has experience with that sort of thing…..
gbear
Everything you need to know about Bobby Jindal happens in the first one second of that clip. Tweety nails it.
Raven
@Steve Earle Bruce Springsteen: Lucinda will
Alan
Way back in my conservative republican days when I used to listened to RW radio, Rush Limbaugh talked about Jindal as “the guy” waiting in the wings to lead the party as an actual true conservative. Since Rush is the Party leader, my guess is he’s the reason Jindal’s name always comes up.
Frank
@Russ:
Next time you see him you should ask him what he thinks about Paul only running negative ads against Santorum/Gingrich but none at all against Romney. Does he realize that Paul is just another politician without principles?
Johannes
C’mon, John, it’s your blog, you can do ANYYYYYTHING!
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
They are all fucked up and desperate. I guess they are blithely slinging the race card up against the wingnut wall to see if it half sticks. You know, takes a colored furriner to catch a colored furriner, or some stupid shit like that.
PTirebiter
@salacious crumb: The term sociopath gets thrown around too lightly, but how else to explain anyone who goes on the record with sentiments like that?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Meanwhile, is anybody other than Ron Paul paying attention to the people who are being selected as delegates to the GOP convention? Particularly with an eye on what the official party platform voted in at the convention is going to be? Normally these are boring affairs that nobody pays much attention to, but I’m thinking that this year the GOP may produce a highly entertaining document, in a Gold in them thar hills! arrgle bargle! Lizard Men! Hollow Earth! sort of way. Might make for entertaining TV and some interesting political advertising for the Dems. It would be a such a terrible shame if nominee Romney had to denounce the delegates to his own convention as a bunch of nutbars and ignorant hicks.
salacious crumb
@PTirebiter: like that verse in the lyric of Crazytown’s song Butterfly “too much is never enough”.
Riilism
Just read, from an unreputable source, that Santorum got the same number of delegates form Michigan as Romney…
As Verispaz would say, VICTORY!!!!!!…
Jennifer
Every time I see that tie, I think “Cat in the Hat.”
I mean, you can’t pair that tie with this kind of guy and get away with it.
Chris
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
That’s my take on it too.
One of my conservative friends, when she was still in shell-shock from the Obama election, developed a huge crush on Bobby Jindall and said that he ought to run in 2012 because “ooo, he’s going to be our Obama!”
They really do see Obama (and Jindall) as “the black guy,” and nothing else.
jrg
Ewik son of Ewik really is a piece of work. If he really believes that the only reason someone would support Obama is because he’s black, he must believe that’s the only difference between Obama and whoever they run.
If that’s true (it’s not, but pretend you’re a moron for a second), that must mean that that the only reason anyone voted for McCain is because he’s white… So why on earth would Widdle Ewik believe that his party would throw it’s full support behind Jindal?
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, indeed.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Win.
Thatgaljill
Seriously, I am married to an Indian guy and I live in the Silicon Valley and am surrounded by Indian folks… Bobby Jindal reminds me of some sort of weird animated version of an Indian guy. *shudder*
Anne Laurie
@Thatgaljill:
So…. he’s the subcontinental version of Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney?
The Other Chuck
@Steve Earle Bruce Springsteen:
My favorite response is “All Oil is sold on a single global market. Are you planning on nationalizing the oil industry?”
I mean yes they’ll just continue to chant “DRILL BABY DRILL” but at least then they’ll look like Soshullists as well as morons.
Diana
Great minds think alike, that’s all.
Rob L
I still love the reactionary quote “Oh God” from Chris Matthews at the beginning.
AxelFoley
@Rob L:
That never gets old.
RalfW
Even without the awful SOTU response, Jindal seems like kind of a nothingburger. With it, wel, Hahhahhhahhhha.
beabea
This perfectly illustrates what a hazardous undertaking it is, for conservatives like Erik to try to project themselves into the minds of “most other people.” Jindal has Mitt’s phony corelessness, annoying speaking style and creepily grasping desperation for power, but without the universal health care, business experience, and formerly non-crazy social views. But as a member of the “most other people” contingent (which mostly does not live in Louisiana like I do), I heartily encourage Erik to run with this outstanding idea!
bob h
He looks like an escapee from the set of “Slumdog Millionaire”.