JUNE 24, 2015
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) announced today in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner that he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President. Jindal becomes the 13th GOP candidate to officially get in the race.
A former US Congressman, Jindal is in his second term as Louisiana’s chief executive. In his announcement, he emphasized cutting 30,000 “government bureaucrats” from the state’s payrolls, even as Louisiana’s population continues to grow.
First elected governor in 2008, Jindal quickly became a rising GOP star on the national scene, so much so that in 2009, he was asked to give the Republican response to President Obama’s first State of the Union speech. It was by far Jindal’s biggest national platform, but in the clutch, he choked, appearing halting and uncertain. It was a political disaster for Jindal, drawing unfavorable comparisons to the hayseed character of Kenneth the Page on TV’s “30 Rock.”
He lowered his sights to attend to state business, but as Jindal’s second term ends, Louisiana is caught in a $1.6 billion shortfall that has caused his approval ratings to plummet dramatically.
Today, Jindal appears to be an extreme long-shot at best to find a path to the nomination. His only hope might be if there’s an extreme backlash to the Supreme Court’s expected ruling legalizing gay marriage. Jindal, who was born a Hindu but who converted to Catholicism, could parlay his notable anti-gay positions among evangelical GOP primary voters. But that lane is already extremely crowded with other rivals espousing the same position. And should Jindal get any political traction with that stance, someone will always bring up Kenneth the Page.
 announced today in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner that he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President. Jindal becomes the…){kind=link}