What we need is a straight-talking, honest, authentic governor who will tell us the truth.
Gov. Booby Jindali isn’t meeting those criteria.
How he can continue to claim just to be running for re-election and not running for president is becoming laughable.
The evidence is overwhelming:
--First, his book.
Jindal’s “memoir” (usually written later in life about events earlier in life) doesn’t sound autobiographical: the title is “On Solid Ground: Returning to America’s Core Values,” due out in July, right after the Louisiana Legislature ends its annual session and he’s free for a national book tour and to run about the country raising money for himself and GOP candidates in the fall election.
The key that this book isn’t about Louisiana lies in the co-author, Peter Schweizer.
Schweitzer’s previous books include “Architects of Ruin: How Big Government Liberals Wrecked the Global Economy – and How They Will Do It Again If No One Stops Them” and “The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty.”
Now, it’s a safe bet Schweizer isn’t blaming George W. Bush for taking the national debt from a $200 surplus when he came in to a $1 trillion deficit when he left, but that’s a whole other story. Schweizer’s other polemics include a treatise on Ronald Reagan’s “final triumph over communism,” something called “Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy,” and my personal favorite, a book postulating that Republicans ”work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, and are less materialistic.” That “value honesty more” is a little hard to swallow, but you get the point: Jindal’s co-author is a national Republican writer who is well-connected with the GOP’s top leaders.
--The campaign’s hiring national GOP firms with presidential level experience.
Beyond the fact that Jindal made over 40 trips to fundraisers across the nation, especially in voter-rich states like Florida and Texas, his hiring of national consultants who have worked in previous campaigns is instructive.
He’s got $7 million in the bank, and has raised more than 40 percent of his money out of state.
An Associated Press review of his campaign financial disclosure reports show Jindal spent $911,000 in 2009 – two years before the governor’s race -- an amount far in excess of any governor before him. And the AP said nearly half of the money was spent on an army of out-of-state consultants, strategists, direct mail companies and fundraising coordinators, some linked to such other candidates as President George W. Bush, 2008 GOP candidate John McCain, the Republican National Committee, just to pick a few.
--Dodging pesky questions.
Jindal avoids the Baton Rouge Press Corps more than any governor ever before him, with the possible exception of Earl Long during his difficult days. The governor’s office referred all questions to the state Republican Party Central Committee, whose spokesman could only spout that the governor was running for re-election and wanted the best possible help. The spending, GOP State spokesman Aaron Baer told the AP (presumably with a straight face) wasn’t designed to organize anything other than Jindal’s 2011 re-election bid. We know this must be true because, Jindal’s co-author has already told us that Republicans “value honesty more.”
--His work history.
Prior to being elected to Congress in 2004, Jindal had never held a job longer than about two years. His three-year stint in Congress was, in fact a record. After he became governor, Jindal waited only a few weeks before venturing out on the national scene and travelling about the country raising money. At every previous stage of his political career – and all his jobs save one have been political ones – Jindal has quickly moved on to the next level up.
Jindal doesn’t want to come clean, of course, because he doesn’t want the fact that he really doesn’t want to finish out his second term to be an issue. So he just says he has “no plans” for 2012.
Maybe no firm plans, but certainly a whole lot of preparation.
And not a whole lot of honesty with Louisiana voters.
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