ow

[glaucon]

last summer, I posted on here a prediction that mccain was going to pick jindal as his running mate.
I was baffled when he went with palin instead.

I am no longer baffled.
if his obama rebuttal was the best he can come up with on the stump, palin is marcus tullius fucking cicero in comparison.

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Meow!

[opadit.livejournal.com]

I can't believe he actually said "northern bureaucrats."

Northern bureaucrats.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

> Northern bureaucrats

Holy Faulkner.

Apparently I need to watch the damn thing now.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

The CNN transcript says it was "ignore the bureaucrats," but I wasn't the only person in the room who thought he said different.

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

The whole thing just sounded sooo staged.

I know, I know - welcome to politics, but the whole time he was talking, my spidey sense was going off enough to make me wanna puke. The plastic feel to his words made me ignore most of the content as showmanship.

Probably the nicest guy in the world, but all I could think the whole time was: used car salesman.

[hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com]

It is making sense to me.

The GOP is now in the process of taking stock -- figuring out what works and what doesn't, what the voters respond to and what they don't. They're reinventing themselves; after spending the last 8 years as a big-government party, they're now doing a 180 and hammering on small-government, placing a wager on the notion that Obama's policies, even in the best possible world, will be seen as more burdensome than helpful by the American people in 2012.

Jindal represents the culmination of a different realization on the part of the GOP: wise old men aren't winning elections these days. To win you have to be young and good looking and earnest. Palin reinforces this point; even though she was batshit crazy and a liability every time she expressed any kind of opinion, she was actually useful to the GOP in shoring up the support of the far right. She injected an air of youth into the GOP ticket that, the party masters are thinking, could have won them the presidency if they run it with the president and not the VP candidate.

In Jindal we have a guy that the GOP is grooming as a presidential candidate. It doesn't matter that he's no orator and probably isn't especially bright. In him they have a guy who can look good and say some words without tripping over himself. As long as he can avoid scandal and continue uttering the party line, a minor setback on the part of the Obama administration could be enough to put the GOP back on top. The GOP should prefer somebody like Jindal over somebody like Palin, because regardless of his stump-capability, he doesn't come off as batshit crazy. Isn't that exactly how George W. Bush got elected?

I think that one of the ways that Obama will most influence politics in the 21st century will be to change the kinds of candidates that are fielded. It may be that we won't have any more presidents over 55 for while.

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

I caught a bit of it on NPR while driving home, and it took me a while to realize what it was. I thought "why are they playing an old tape from some boneheaded rightwing republican from the 60s?"

I guess the idea is that as voters flee the republican party, only the crazy right remains, which means you have to pander to them if you want to win primaries in the next round. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me, at least for the next few years.

For the longer term, they are forcing the democrats to completely own the economic recovery. If it happens, the republicans are toast in a general election. If the recovery doesn't happen, well, they're really toast, because the democrats will be able to point out that the people that caused the meltdown are now obstructing the recovery.

Maybe they're planning on a *really* long depression and figure they have a shot in 2020 - which actually makes a bit of sense given a some republican politician recently talking about how they have to "think the taliban".

[opadit.livejournal.com]

Even David Brooks is scratching his head about Jindal.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I made this realization in 2004, after the Kerry fiasco. I'm trying to think of the last time the least charismatic non-incumbent candidate won.

I still don't think the GOP is gonna select a person of color, let alone a Catholic one, as their presidential candidate. Not now, not in the next 50 years.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"presidential candidate"

[opadit.livejournal.com]

I saw what you wrote. I'm just sayin'.

[alice-at-night.livejournal.com]

"fucking cicero" -- thats what I'm talking about!

really, there was a speach? we're all still recovering from Mardi Gras, y'know.