Citing his recycled speeches and retreaded jokes during his speech this past weekend, Beltway website Politico has named Gov. Bobby Jindal one of the losers of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. Jindal joins GOP Machiavelli Karl Rove, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and austerity auteur Paul Ryan on the list. Jindal tied former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for ninth place in a presidential preference straw poll at the conference.
Here’s what Politico had to say about Jindal:
The widespread expectation among conservative thought leaders is that the Louisiana governor will be the 2016 cycle’s Tim Pawlenty, a nice guy who would make a great cabinet secretary for the next Republican president. He pulled 3 percent in the straw poll, tied with Palin.Read more here.
It was a sign of how much Jindal has been overshadowed by Paul and Rubio that throngs of attendees streamed out of the room after Romney spoke and before he took the stage an hour later. Romney himself notably omitted Jindal, who endorsed Rick Perry in the primaries, from a list of nine Republican governors that the party can learn from.
Jindal positioned himself as the GOP’s truth teller in the wake of the election, criticizing Romney and saying Republicans must “stop being the stupid party.” Many noticed that he dropped that admonition in his CPAC address.
Otherwise, he delivered an almost identical speech to the one he gave this January in Charlotte at the Republican National Committee winter meeting and, later, at a National Review conference in D.C. The governor’s advisers say that the message – embracing growth over austerity – is an important one that bears repeating.
Jindal also recycled the same jokes he delivered at last weekend’s Gridiron Dinner in Washington.
“I see Eric Holder is with us,” he said at one point, setting up a jest at the attorney general.
Holder, obviously, was not at CPAC.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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