Although pundits panned Gov. Bobby Jindal’s speech following President Obama’s address to Congress, Ryan Cole warns against writing off the rookie governor from Louisiana:
The past several national elections have seen the GOP, chasing after the [Reagan’s] ghost, nominate candidates with some of the right core convictions and the ability to communicate broad themes. Yet they often seemed paralyzed when it came to explaining their own policy prescriptions and incapable of actually articulating the distinction between conservatism and liberalism. Accordingly, inarticulate Republicans have been defined downward by their opposition — a recipe for almost certain defeat at the polls.
Last Tuesday’s response to the president made it abundantly clear that Jindal is not yet in the rhetorical league of Presidents Reagan or Obama. He is, however, already their equal in terms of intellect and policy expertise. Not yet 40, Jindal, a Rhodes Scholar, has already helped salvage Louisiana’s Medicare as secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals, served as president of his state’s university system, served as an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and been twice elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Only in the second year of his first term as the Pelican state’s governor, there is plenty of time for his rhetorical skills to catch up to his policy expertise.
