Bobby Jindal Damned If He Does Damned If He Don't

Journalist and political historian, Robert Mann the Manship Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University  and director of the school’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs has a blog I check out on a regular basis. See Something Like the Truth.

He is I think it's fair to say part of the vocal loyal patriotic opposition to some aspecst of the Bobby Jindal Governorship which of course is part of any healthy democracy.

Yesterday I interacted briefly with him via his twitter ‏@RTMannJr on some comments that Bobby Jindal made about some past mistake the GOP made during the past election year.

He has now elaborated on those comments at his blog post Bobby Jindal, the USS GOP and the Iceberg .

In his Titanic  post he says:

....Jindal clearly saw that party leaders were out of touch with the concerns of middle-income Americans. He clearly observed how deeply women voters were offended by the reckless rape talk of GOP Senate candidates. He spotted clearly all the troubles — the electoral iceberg — that sank the GOP ship and, with it, Captain Romney’s campaign.


And from his lifeboat, Jindal gave an interview to Politico transcriber Jonathan Martin, in which he told readers all about the iceberg that he saw but never mentioned until the USS GOP had slipped below the waters of the roiling ocean.

“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal said in the Politico transcription. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

Wouldn’t it have been nice if Jindal had thought to point out all those menacing icebergs when it might have saved the ship? ....

Again as I say read it all.

I am still not quite buying his argument.

 In political campaigns it's very difficult to stay on  message to say the least. All sort of events, people, and assorted craziness come out of left field that either has to be dealt with or in many cases ignored so your campaign message is not dictated by others. Many of  whom don't have your best interest at heart.

I suspect Dr. Mann  who has some sort of experience with this since his years of public service which include being press secretary to Senators Breaux and Long might have been there.

It should be recalled that Bobby Jindal first backed the the USS Rick Perry. He stayed pretty loyal to the Perry flagship till the end when it broke up over the primary shoals . Then he got on board the USS Mitt Romney in which he was a loyal supporter to till it  got to the election dock. The election is now over.

I think it is fair to say whatever misgivings Jindal might have had about the Romney effort for various policy reasons he thought it was a much better alternative to the USS Obama.

Would have it been really in Romney's or the GOP's best interests for Jindal to spend weeks getting  into  how to better answer the question regarding rape, abortion, God's will,  predestination , etc the good Senate hopeful from Indiana introduced ?

I know there was a difference of opinion. The Romney campaign that had gained some traction wanted not to have this the topic get them off the economy and the budget. Forces of the Democratic Party disagreed and thought this was one damn fine subject and we should drop everything and discuss this topic.  I have a feeling though the Democratic opinion might have had a conflict of interest.

Would it have been really good for the GOP if Jindal had got on to Romney out there on the stump on lets say the 47 percent remark. Let's recall the USS Romney had already sailed and there no was USS ( fill in the blank) to get into.

But lets say in some bizarre world Bobby Jindal decided to take that advice. No doubt today there would  be Jindal opponents going "SEE SAME OLE JINDAL LOOKING OUT FOR HIMSELF". Thus we would have had some quite interesting discussion how Jindal was trying to torpedo Romney for his own 2016 Presidential ambitions. Damned if you do Damned if you don't.

There is a time and place for discussions like these and I think Jindal's timing is appropriate.