Sorry for the inactivity… with exams and a depressing election season, I have tried to stay away from the political and cultural. One recurring issue that I keep being asked about is worth a return.
Of the many elements of the 2008 election that have struck me as odd, the crowning of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal as the savior of the Right is perhaps most disturbing. We have witnessed, over the past 8 years or so, a conservative movement that was at one time dominant fall apart and submit to the Left on a host of key issues, only breaking with liberals, astoundingly, on the most damaging issues, such as the Iraq War. Abandoning popular conservative issues like secure borders and balanced budgets for expensive wars, bailouts, and ever-increasing expansion of big-government only brought failure for the GOP. Future success is dependent upon a reevaluation of conservative ideals and a reexamination of the party loyalists that have led traditional conservatism to the brink of extinction.
Instead, party-hacks and purists alike are ready to push forward the 2012 nomination process and nominate Jindal as soon as possible. The buzz is eerily similar to that which surrounded Obama after the 2004 Democratic Party convention, and an analysis of Jindal’s policy prescriptions suggests it is similar in its emphasis on style-over-substance. He is a proud supporter of our foreign misadventures and is a strong advocate of the security state, having voted for electronic surveillance without a warrant, intelligence gathering without civil oversight, and federalizing drivers licenses.
What is also mysterious is Jindal’s overwhelming approval amongst conservatives unhappy with the GOP. Why is Jindal any different from the rank-and-file Republicans that have driven their party into the ground? The honest answer is: he isn’t any different. He caucused with the GOP 97% of the time when part of the 109th Congress. He was a member of the Republican Study Committee. He has also pushed for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
Despite these problems, Jindal is said to be the next, best hope for the Right. The real reasons are simple. He is young (at 36, the youngest governor in America), He is the first non-white to serve as Louisiana governor since Reconstruction, and was the first Indian American governor in U.S. History. It seems that conservatives, not learning the lessons of the past decade, have decided it is easier and more effective to conduct what amounts to plastic surgery on a cancer patient. It’s not the same old GOP: now we have color.
Is Jindal a more principled conservative than McCain? Without a doubt. With a strong record on illegal immigration, a good budgetary history, and a stellar record on abortion, he boasts a resume significantly stronger than McCain did. But what is to ensure he does not become another George W. Bush; a candidate who entered preaching fiscal conservatism, a humble foreign policy, and brought the “culture of life” rhetoric but left having spent more than Clinton, grown government more than it had grown in decades, and allowed Roe to remain as strong as ever. Not to mention, most middle-American Republicans can recognize that the warfare-state, security-state may be worth at the very least a reexamination. Shouldn’t the party be able to assure Americans that they are sending poor farm-kids off to die for a worthy cause?
Jindal demonstrates, I fear, an unwillingness on the part of the Right to examine its past sins and return to principle. Could Jindal be a good candidate in 2012. It is very possible. But conservatives should learn a lesson from the Obama-craze: stirring up political passions with superficial nonsense can help elect a president, but it can’t elect a great leader.
