Is Jindal Looking to 2012?
Not that we would ever speculate, but Bobby Jindal seems to be taking a page out of President Barack Obama's campaign playbook. Jindal's new book, titled, On Solid Ground: Returning to America's Core Values, sounds like it could be Governor Jindal's version of Obama's not so subtle campaign manifesto, The Audacity of Hope. The Associated Press reports that the book will “be more than just an autobiography of the Louisiana governor" and will lay out "a political treatise on his vision for the Republican Party."
If you replaced the word “Republican” with “Democratic,” the AP's description of Governor Jindal's upcoming book could have been a quote from a preview of then Senator Obama's then-upcoming book way back in 2007. Reviewing Obama's book, the New York Times noted that it was “much more of a political document. Portions of the volume read like outtakes from a stump speech, and the bulk of it is devoted to laying out Mr. Obama’s policy positions on a host of issues, from education to health care to the war in Iraq.” The Chicago Tribune observed that The Audacity of Hope was mostly a "political biography that concentrates on the senator's core values.”
The parallels could be coincidence, but then again, Governor Jindal's personal treatise unveiling his vision for the Republican Party wouldn't be that relevant unless he was running to become the leader of the party itself. If the AP's description is accurate, it’s hard to imagine that Governor Jindal is not seriously considering mounting a run in 2012. Given this fact, his absence from this week’s CPAC conference is at least worth noting. The two male favorites, Mitt Romney and Gov. Tim Pawlenty, are speaking, and the female candidate who shall not be named, stormed back into the national spotlight last week at the Tea Party Convention. Jindal's absence (only a year ago he was THE young Republican superstar) raises the possibility that the governor is avoiding being too tied to closely with the Republican establishment.