Bobby Jindal – Page 2

There’s something about Andy…

It has now made national news that the townhall meeting held by Andy Harris up at Chesapeake College turned into a loud protest brought on by the local, so-called “Indivisible” groups. (Even more amusing is their reaction when Harris called out one woman who continued to be disruptive. It’s from a page called “Shareblue” which is trying to be the Breitbart of the regressive Left.) Now I have attended Harris townhalls in the past (here are three examples; unfortunately two of them no longer have the photos) and they have often began with PowerPoint presentations – this is nothing new. But it seemed like the fringe Left wanted blood, so they reacted accordingly.

In some other forum I made the point that we never get to hear from the other side. Maybe I just don’t find out about it because I’m not on the radical left e-mail list, but it seems to me that our Senators rarely hold townhall meetings and when they do they are in politically safe (for them) areas like Silver Spring.

Yet the argument from the Left is that they are simply doing what members of the TEA Party did during the initial Obamacare debate in 2009. (The “Indivisible” crowd claims to be using the same tactics the TEA Party did.) I will grant the TEA Party stepped out of bounds on a few occasions – one case in point was this protest* in front of then-Congressman Frank Kratovil’s Salisbury office in July of 2009 that I covered (which remains one of the most commented-upon posts I’ve ever done here) – but when it came to a townhall setting, yes, we showed our passion. In comparison to the new alt-Left, though, we were well-behaved.

Then again, local conservatives have had to put up with disruptions from the Left for awhile so perhaps this isn’t a new phenomenon.

As evidence of the difference, I attended a meeting set up by Senator Cardin in August of 2009. It wasn’t initially intended as a true townhall meeting because its target audience was seniors, but a few of those in the local TEA Party (including me) managed to secure tickets – the 100 or so there could have easily been double or triple if the room were set to accommodate them. This explains how the meeting came to be:

Originally the meeting was set up back in March and wasn’t intended to be a town hall; however, once the health care controversy blew up this became a hot ticket. The intention was to get the perspective of residents who are over 50 and live on the Lower Shore, and the ground rules were pretty strict. There would be no questions during Senator Cardin’s presentation, the ratio would be one question for a GraySHORE member for each one from a non-member, and questions would have a 30-second limit.

In the welcoming remarks, it was noted that the state as a whole is getting younger but the Eastern Shore is aging. While the state is a “net exporter of seniors” at least 7 of the 9 Shore counties are net importers. We are also older and poorer than the state at-large. The idea behind GraySHORE was to brief elected officials with policy recommendations.

Something I found intriguing was the mention of Senator Cardin’s career. He has been our Senator since 2007, but served in Congress since 1987 and was a member of Maryland’s General Assembly for almost two decades before that – he was first elected in 1966. Basically, Senator Cardin fits the definition of a professional politician and I thought that was worth mentioning before I got too far.

When Senator Cardin came up, he noted that he was skipping the slide show to get to the questions. He also commented that this size group was a “manageable” group for dialogue.

As he had on prior occasions, the Senator couched the health care question as one of “what happens if we do nothing?” Health care costs were rising faster than income and would double in the next decade. As well, Cardin gave that mythical 46 million uninsured figure as part of his case and claimed that it cost each of us “an extra $11,000 per year to pay for (those not covered).”

The idea behind reform was to bring down costs through wellness and prevention and through better recordkeeping, while creating individual and employer mandates through the bill. It would provide a “level playing field” for private insurers and remove the caps on coverage, but above all reform “must reduce costs and be paid for.” Cardin compared the idea to Medicare, which has worked “extremely well” over its lifespan and was put into place because insurers wouldn’t cover the elderly or disabled. (Emphasis added for this post.)

It should also be pointed out that most of the TEA Party objections centered on policy and not necessarily personality. Bear in mind that the first TEA Party protests were over the stimulus proposal because the bill that eventually came to be known as Obamacare (which used as its shell a bill passed in the House but completely gutted by the Senate in order to satisfy the Constitutional requirement that bills dealing with revenue had to come from the House – a legislative sleight-of-hand if there ever was one) hadn’t been introduced yet. That came later on in the summer. So at the time this was done there were a number of competing bills for the Senate to consider.

And did the TEA Party raise a ruckus over that summer? Certainly, and they asked a lot of questions. But listen to how this went down. My guess is that the context of this video is one where it was taken after some townhall event or other public appearance by Kratovil. The questions are certainly pointed, but the key is that the audience is listening to Frank’s side of the story. They may not believe it, but they are being respectful. Now imagine if the lot at Chesapeake College were to be in that same situation with Harris – I doubt Andy would get a word in edgewise.

In truth, I think the “Indivisible” group would have began no matter which Republican secured the nomination and won the election – out of the field of contenders for the 2016 GOP nomination Donald Trump was probably the second-most philosophically close to the left (with onetime New York governor George Pataki, a pro-choice Republican, the only one being closer.) Remember, Trump is the one that added the “replace” to repeal of Obamacare.

I will grant that several of Trump’s Cabinet choices are relatively conservative, but for the most part they are also outsiders and I think he was looking more for that aspect of “draining the swamp” by intentionally selecting people outside the Beltway axis than selecting those who are for rightsizing government. But the leftists would likely be out in some force for John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, et. al. – just not to this extent. About the only two 2016 aspirants who would have attracted as much ire as Trump would have been Ted Cruz (because he would have governed from a truly conservative philosophy) and Scott Walker (based on what happened in Wisconsin.) Maybe Bobby Jindal would have been a third.

But here’s a message for those who believe Andy Harris can be toppled in 2018: Go ahead and nominate the most radical leftist you want to Congress, and you will watch Harris spank him or her by 20 to 25 points. Thanks to your favorite former governor, this district basically has the bulk of Republicans in Maryland and considering Andy had almost 80% of the primary vote (over a candidate with legislative experience, a previously unsuccessful candidate, and one other “regular” person) I don’t think you will get too far.

And I know you will point to Frank Kratovil’s 2008 victory over Harris as proof a Democrat can win here but bear in mind that the redrawn district took away the portion of Anne Arundel County Harris won by about 3,000 votes and added Carroll County, where Republican Roscoe Bartlett won by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, or 25,000 votes. Even though the First District doesn’t take in all of Carroll County, I think that with the post-2010 First District Harris would have won in 2008 with over 50% of the vote.

Your caterwauling doesn’t help your cause. And if you want to use the TEA Party as your measuring stick, it’s worth noting that their success was really fairly limited insofar as national electoral results go. The problem with those on the far Left is that they are trying to sell the same stuff that didn’t work for their other “answers” to the TEA Party like the Coffee Party, Occupy Wall Street, and so forth, and most Americans don’t buy it. They wanted repeal without replacement, immigration laws to be followed and the border secured, regulatory agencies reined in, and – most especially – they didn’t want a third Obama term via Hillary Clinton.

Of all the things that fuel the Indivisible movement, they can’t get over the fact that under the rules in place Hillary lost despite getting more votes. Well, to borrow a phrase from another liberal movement, it’s time for you all to move on.

__________

*As longtime readers know, many of my photo archives were lost with the demise of an Adobe website where I used to link to them rather than place them on my website server – at the time my storage there was limited. In a stroke of remarkable fortune, this Kratovil protest piece was on the front page of my site when the Wayback Machine did its occasional archive so I recovered these photos earlier today – the post is once again complete and coherent.

The bait and switch?

Those who read here know my feelings about our President-elect and that he didn’t get my vote in November – instead it went to the Constitution Party and its candidate Darrell Castle.

As part of that process I began to follow the CP on social media, and I noticed their link to a story that came out before Christmas regarding an attempt by a surrogate of a Johnny-come-lately to the 2016 presidential race to use the Constitution Party ballot line they had earned in a number of states. I’ll quote the lede from the Daily Caller:

Former Republican Washington Sen. Slade Gorton attempted to convince Constitution Party presidential nominee Darrell Castle to drop out so that independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin could have more ballot access.

Gorton, who endorsed McMullin, and Castle both described to The Daily Caller what happened in early December. “What he had in mind was that I would drop out of the race and Evan McMullin would take over my ballot line and would be the Constitution Party’s candidate,” Castle said about a phone call that he says took shortly after McMullin announced his candidacy (in August.)

The story goes on to note that McMullin, who had the benefit of far more press coverage and was actually included in the polling in some states, garnered many more votes than Castle. A reasonably final tally gave McMullin 725,902 votes to Castle’s 202,979 – the Daily Caller undercut Castle by about 20,000 votes. (By comparison, the more “common” third party candidates Jill Stein of the Green Party and Libertarian Gary Johnson received 1,457,044 and 4,488,919 votes respectively. McMullin and Castle were fifth and sixth in the national totals.)

If you’ve been at it this long, you’ll recall as well that McMullin was one of the candidates I considered in the race after the GOP left conservatives like me high and dry, but I found him wanting on a number of issues. However, the erstwhile Senator Gordon had a good point regarding the possibility a more well-known candidate would help the Constitution Party in the long run. While he wasn’t a doctrinaire libertarian, consider that Gary Johnson in his two runs took the LP from onetime Republican Rep. Bob Barr’s 523,713 votes in 2008 to nearly 4.5 million this time – exceeding an eightfold increase in eight years. The LP purists probably hated Johnson, but he gave the party a media presence and that is the way to get their overall message across. Certainly the other candidates who ran under the Libertarian banner were pleased to have some attention toward their bids based on the recognition of their presidential candidate.

So I would argue that another former governor might be a great choice for the Constitution Party candidate in 2020. Freed from the shackles of political correctness, this person can take the proven budget cutting ability exhibited, the pro-life stance, and devotion to the workings of policy to a venue where a more nationally known voice is needed. Personally, I believe former governor Bobby Jindal would be an ideal choice for the CP – not only would the switch bring the party some attention, but I believe Jindal could be the bridge candidate the party would need as a transition to its rightful place on the national stage as well as the type of policy wonk who could spell out a platform enabling our country to transform itself from the federal behemoth that pays lip service to its founding documents to an exceptional America that plays by the rules its founders set for itself, allowing us to form a more perfect Union.

Of course, the conventional wisdom would be to scoff at this notion, as Jindal is young enough to be a candidate in 2024 and several cycles beyond (he was born in 1971.) But he never gained traction in this just-completed campaign, and the state of the Republican Party may be such by the time Donald Trump is finished that it may not be recognizable to conservatives. On the other hand, even if Jindal only gets 1% of the vote in 2020 that would increase the Constitution Party numbers sixfold without a tremendous change in philosophy. While that’s nowhere close to winning, Jindal could be to the CP what Barry Goldwater was to conservatism in 1964 – doing well enough in a hopeless situation that success eventually came.

The Constitution Party isn’t in the position to win the presidency yet. Their first job is to somehow get ballot access in all 50 states, while simultaneously inspiring a crop of leaders who will take the party banner into the battle for local and state offices against the present red-blue duopoly that seems to be two sides of the same coin in most respects.

For far too many of our office-holders, their fealty to the Constitution ends about the same time their oath of office does. As one who recited that oath as a party appointed or elected official half a dozen times, I took my promise seriously. I couldn’t in good conscience support a party standardbearer who I thought untrustworthy, so I left the Republican Central Committee. In the months since as I have studied things, I’ve developed an interest in the Constitution Party and believe they should be the home for many millions of Americans who still care about what made America great. If he should somehow take my advice and come over to the Constitution Party, I think Governor Jindal will be of major assistance in expanding its ranks.

Thoughts on Ted Cruz and his endorsement of Donald Trump

Let’s start off with my initial emotions on this announcement: disappointment, then resignation. I think this adequately captures both sides of the equation going forward, so allow me to elaborate.

I consider myself a limited-government conservative, or perhaps better described as a conservative with libertarian tendencies in a number of respects and areas. I often write about the idea of “rightsizing” the federal government down to a point where it does the minimum required of it in the Constitution, and this worldview affected my perception of the 2016 Presidential field. Ted Cruz was not my overall first choice out of the group, but of those remaining when Maryland’s day in the sun came back in late April he was – by miles – the best remaining choice in terms of my stated desire to reform the federal government in a Constitutional manner.

On the other hand, I had already heard and seen enough from Donald Trump to know that he wasn’t going to significantly improve the situation inside the Beltway. He had already backtracked and capitulated on enough campaign issues for me to see that he wasn’t going to be trustworthy enough to be the GOP standard-bearer. Although we went for a period of about 2 1/2 months before the Republican National Convention with the idea that there still were chances to derail the Trump train, the national Republican party (and Trump zealots) did their best to make sure that the “victory” Trump won (dubious at best, thanks to the number of open primaries) with just a plurality of the Republican vote would stand. In the end, many supporters of Ted Cruz as well as John Kasich were browbeaten into acceptance – the rest became the significant number of #NeverTrump folks out there, of which I was one. I would not accept Trump as the nominee, and my conscience would not allow me to work within an organization that promoted someone of dubious value to the conservative movement.

So when Ted Cruz stood at the podium of the convention and exhorted everyone to vote their conscience, I considered it a highlight of an otherwise pathetic coronation of The Donald as Republican nominee. My confidence in Trump upholding the planks of the GOP platform was about the same as the confidence that he could go a week without being on the media for saying something asinine – in both cases, about zero. The fact that the Trump people booed Ted Cruz off the stage was proof that they weren’t principled enough to stand before conservatives to defend their candidate when his bona fides were questioned.

Obviously I was not thrilled to see Cruz fall off the #NeverTrump wagon after all that transpired between Trump and “lyin’ Ted” during the primaries. (Of course, that assumes he was really ever on it.) But as Christians we pray to have our trespasses forgiven as we would those who trespass against us, and from the tenor of Cruz’s comments in his statement I think he has forgiven Donald Trump for what he said during the campaign as simple competitive rhetoric.

And Cruz has a number of political calculations he has to account for, too. After November the election season turns to the 2018 cycle, and Cruz is part of it as the junior Senator from Texas. Certainly there are already people in Texas politics smarting from the very fact that Cruz upset the establishment choice of former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the GOP primary there four years ago, but former Gov. Rick Perry is one of those rumored to be considering a 2018 run for Cruz’s seat. Opponents cite the alienation of Trump voters as just another factor against Cruz, since there’s also the perceived blame for the 2013 government slowdown and the reputation for being a boat-rocking troublemaker that Cruz carries. (It should be noted that all that baggage was supposed to sink Cruz’s presidential campaign early on, but he outlasted most of the rest of the field that was supposedly more palatable to the electorate.)

For all his issues, it’s clear that for Ted Cruz to have a political future he had to modify his stance on Trump, and that was made more convenient by the unqualified Democratic candidate and the pledge he took to support the Republican. Over the next four years he is more useful in the Senate than martyred by his own rhetoric.

So let’s say Trump loses, Cruz retains his Senate seat, and the Clinton/Kaine team continues the damage done by Obama/Biden. The question is whether people will be as passionate about Cruz in 2020 or if they will consider him damaged goods? Assuming Trump loses and doesn’t wish to try again at the age of 73, the early favorite in 2020 has to be Mike Pence – just as the first rights of refusal went to Sarah Palin in 2012 and Paul Ryan this year. But there will certainly be a crop of those who didn’t grasp the brass ring this year looking to seize the nomination: I would strongly suspect that group includes Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal. All of them (except Kasich, who briefly ran in 2000) were first-time candidates – the political world seems to be that of just two strikes and being out, which eliminates guys like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee as old news. All but Kasich also seek the votes of strong conservatives, with Kasich being more of a moderate.

At this point I would still like to see Bobby Jindal make a 2020 run, as there’s little chance one of the 2016 crop knocks him off as the king of my hill. But someone new could strike my fancy or there could be a significant moderation in Jindal’s political views. Still, I would welcome Ted Cruz to the fray with open arms, knowing he had to do those things he may not have liked in order to keep his position of leadership in the conservative movement.

As for me, I remain #NeverTrump whether it’s politically damaging or not. Since politics is not my job I have little to lose but a lot to gain as I work to convince people of the benefits of limited government and support those inside politics who advocate it with actions, not words.

Compare and contrast: government vs. the private sector

A few days ago I mentioned the manufacturing advocates the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) in a post regarding their convention plans. I wasn’t surprised to see they were very pleased with Hillary Clinton’s remarks, including a plan to “pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.” Ah yes, the old “investment” in infrastructure, where taxpayer money will be shoveled to cronies and unions in an effort to build things we may not need or use (like facilities for public transit, bike paths, and so forth) at the artificial “prevailing” wage. Spend five dollars, waste two or three more – they don’t care because it’s all on the credit card anyway.

It sounds to me just like the promises regarding the “stimulus” package from Barack Obama, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. Those “shovel-ready” jobs actually turned out to be, among other things, government backstopping certain public-sector jobs that may have been destined for the chopping block. Only a small portion of the over $800 billion spent actually went to infrastructure, but ARRA was sold as an investment in infrastructure. So pardon me if I expect little good to come from Hillary’s plan.

Anyway, last night I read a contention that was more interesting (and realistic) from American Enterprise Institute scholar (as well as professor of economics and finance) Mark J. Perry. Here is the money line:

The bottom line is that America’s abundant and low-cost natural gas and electricity have more than offset higher labor costs in the U.S. and have contributed to the strongest profitability in a generation or more for U.S. manufacturers. Within three years, and possibly even sooner, it will be cheaper for most U.S. companies to manufacture goods for the American market at home, compared to producing those same goods in Asia. (Emphasis mine.)

Of course, that prediction is fraught with peril. We could regulate our way out of the energy boom by continuing to mandate the use of expensive, inefficient renewable energy sources (or, in lieu of that, transfer payments from utility providers), we can maintain the oppressive tax climate that has been one of many reasons companies are choosing to go offshore – any bean counter will tell you it’s better to pay 15% tax than 35% – or actually enact the increasing minimum wage that unfortunately Donald Trump is now supporting. Any or all of these are possible regardless of who wins the Oval Office.

And that’s the shame of it all. Over the course of the nation’s history, we have seen America become a great industrial power only to lose its advantage to upstarts like Japan and China. (Then again, we wrested the title from the British in the 1800s so things are always fluid.) These Asian nations took advantage of newer technology and less expensive labor to attract American manufacturing jobs that were in older, less efficient unionized plants, despite the fact these items would have to shipped back thousands of miles to their primary market.

But here we have the chance to get some of this back, and my fear is that too many people want to keep the status quo in place as a political issue rather than solve the problem. We talk about being a free market insofar as trade is concerned, but I contend that we need to work on freeing our own market:

Toss out these federal and state regulations and carveouts that only benefit special interests or large, established competitors trying to corner their respective markets.
Encourage the adoption of right-to-work laws so unions are forced to compete and sell the benefits they provide for the cost to workers.
Instead of debating whether the minimum wage should be increased or not, we should be debating how quickly we phase it out. The true minimum wage is zero, which is what workers who are tossed out of a job when companies can’t afford the increased labor costs will earn.

In reading the GOP platform (and I’m just going to ignore the Democrats on this one, since they aren’t selling themselves as free-market, limited-government types) I saw some attention paid to these issues, although their approach seems to be more of just controlling growth and pruning around the edges than a wholesale reduction. Needless to say, that platform could be completely ignored by the elected members of the party from Donald Trump on down if the idea of enriching their friends, rather than the supporters of the other side that have engorged themselves over the last eight years, remains in place.

Sadly, over most of the last century it hasn’t really mattered which side was in power because government has grown regardless of who was in charge. (The one exception: the Harding-Coolidge era of the 1920s, when the federal budget was drastically reduced – and annually balanced – after World War I. In a time where we are stuck with Trump, Clinton, or maybe Gary Johnson, what we really needed was a Coolidge. Bobby Jindal was probably the closest we had in the GOP field.)

I began this whole process by talking about infrastructure, and there’s a legitimate need for prudent spending on upgrades where it is appropriate. Sometimes there is a need for a new federal or state facility. But I have also seen how the government uses infrastructure to maintain a cash cow, with my favorite example being the Ohio Turnpike I grew up close by.

You see, the original plan was to eliminate the tolls once the bonds to construct the road were paid off in the 1980s. (This was promised when the highway was built in the early 1950s – my dad remembers them staking it out a few miles from his house.) But then they decided that some new exits were necessary (which they were) so they decided to build those. Then it was adding a third lane in each direction between Youngstown and Toledo (a process still going insofar as I know, since I haven’t been that way in a couple years), then renovating all the rest areas (twice in thirty years, and ditto), and so on and so forth. Forget the promise to remove the tolls once the highway was paid off – they constantly spend money on projects that weren’t within the original scope, perpetuating the agency that runs the Turnpike.

In theory, we could spend money from now until doomsday on government-sponsored projects. Some contractors would benefit, but others would be left out in the cold because there’s a certain procedure required to bid on and win public works contracts. But it wouldn’t necessarily be the best use of our funds – and by that I don’t mean the money in the public till but the money that we earn for our collective pockets. If we really want to get manufacturing going and bring it back to America, we need to maximize their potential for meeting our marketplace. They may make mistakes, but that should be up to the market to pick winners and not the government.

The case against Trump (part 1)

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m one of those Republicans who occupies the #NeverTrump camp.

Before I go any further, let me explain some basic math to you: 0+0 = 0. My not voting for Trump does not add one to Hillary Clinton’s column because I’m not voting for her, either. By the theory some on the Trump bandwagon are using to criticize #NeverTrump, my not voting for Hillary should add one to his total. But it won’t. I will vote for someone who I feel is the most qualified on the ballot, rather than the lesser of two searing-hot evils.

This election was supposed to be the repudiation of the Obama big-government, strongly executive agenda. Unfortunately, unless the GOP comes to its senses next week, frees the delegates, and comes up with a good conservative candidate, they will sink like the Titanic in November.

But I don’t come by my distaste for Trump lightly. While he has some redeeming qualities that could conceivably come into play on the slim chance he’s elected, there is the sense in my mind that he takes the ideal of limited government and wrests it from the domain of the GOP, leaving both major parties as two sides of the same worthless coin.

It’s likely you recall that I based my original endorsement (of Bobby Jindal, who is backing Trump but has been quiet about it) on the field’s positions on ten items, with a sliding scale of importance assigned to each:

Education
Second Amendment
Energy
Social Issues
Trade and job creation
Taxation
Immigration
Foreign Policy
Entitlements
Role of Government

So I went back and reminded myself. To avoid this being overly long, I’m doing the first five in this part with part 2 hosting the second half.

On education, Trump claims to be for local control and against Common Core, which is an orthodox Republican view. But even though he would “cut it way, way, way down” he doesn’t support the complete elimination of the Department of Education. He does have a good point in reversing the trend toward the government being a student loan lender, pushing it back to the banks and other lending institutions where it traditionally rested.

The problem with his approach is that it doesn’t go far enough. Other candidates vowed to finish the job Ronald Reagan vowed to start by eliminating the Department of Education. To me, the federal government has no place on education – states and localities should set standards and run their school systems as they see fit. But any attempt to wean local school districts off the crack of federal funding will be met with howls of protest and Trump fails to impress me as someone who will follow through with these promises. After all, Trump did say education was one of the top three functions of government. “The government can lead it, but it should be privately done.” I’m confused, too.

Trump seems to be a Second Amendment guy as he did get the NRA endorsement. But the chairman of Gun Owners of America was not as quick to praise The Donald based on his past statements. And again, the idea is not just to enforce the laws on the books but get rid of some of the most egregious, let alone get to “shall not be infringed.” But wouldn’t someone who is on the no-fly list in error be having their rights infringed? This observer asks the question.

And then we have the subject of energy. Now Trump went to North Dakota – a major oil producing state – and promoted his “America First” energy plan. In it, he promised “Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interest will be scrapped.” But when he was in Iowa campaigning a few months earlier he threw his support behind a wasteful ethanol subsidy and carveout. So which is it? And would he allow Sarah Palin to sunset the Department of Energy?

On to social issues: Trump says he is pro-life and would defund Planned Parenthood, but how will he restore a “culture of life”? We don’t have that specific. Nor will be stand against the troubling idea of leaving people free to use the bathroom they feel like using – this despite claiming gay marriage should be left to the states – or is it the “law of the land“? (By that same token, so is abortion as it was based on a SCOTUS decision, too.)

So do you get the idea so far that I trust him about as far as I can throw him based on mixed messages and inconsistent policies? Once again, the idea here in the upcoming term was to reverse the tide of bigger, more intrusive government – but I don’t detect the same sort of impetus from Trump that I received from the candidates I favored. And to me, what would make America great again is for us to return to being good – at least in terms of re-adopting the Judeo-Christian values we’ve gotten away from after ousting God from the public square. I don’t see “Two Corinthians” but three marriages Trump as being a spiritual leader in the manner of a Reagan or George W. Bush, even insofar as being decent human beings.

And lastly for this evening, I’d like to talk about Trump on trade and job creation. Since history isn’t taught well, we tend to believe the Great Depression was the end result of the 1929 stock market crash. But there’s a convincing argument made that rural America took the biggest hit thanks to the effects of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930. Granted, the world is a lot different and more interconnected now, but American farmers produce a lot of exports (as do chicken growers locally, as the products in demand overseas complement nicely with what we consume here.) Certainly a renegotiation of our current and proposed trade pacts is in order, but would Trump walk away from the table or just angle for any deal? And would he be against Trade Promotion Authority like he was as a candidate when he’s the president negotiating the pact? I doubt it.

And given the amount of union rank-and-file backing he seems to have, it’s no wonder he hasn’t come out more strongly for right-to-work laws, barely mentioning it during the campaign.

To many, Trump’s views on these subjects are on the outside of the range that’s acceptable to the standard GOP. And are they to the right of Hillary Clinton? For the most part, yes – but that assumes that he’s a man of his word and his business dealings suggest otherwise.

So in part 2 I will discuss the more important five issues on my scaling system, and this is where Trump really begins to sound like Hillary.

Gilmore says goodbye

If you didn’t realize onetime Virginia governor Jim Gilmore was still in the Presidential race, you can save the realization now because he withdrew yesterday – much to the chagrin of all 145 people who voted for him in Iowa (12) and New Hampshire (133.) But seriously, had he done more to round out his platform Jim may have received my support. On a lot of issues he was leading in the right direction but just as his abortive 2008 bid failed to catch fire so did his 2016 effort.

Gilmore had this to say about his exit:

“My campaign was intended to offer the gubernatorial experience, with the track record of a true conservative, experienced in national security, to unite the party.” Gilmore said, “My goal was to focus on the importance of this election as a real turning point, and to emphasize the dangers of continuing on a road that will further undermine America’s economy and weaken our national security.”

“Nonetheless, I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,” Gilmore said. “And, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that our next President is a free enterprise Republican who will restore our nation to greatness and keep our citizens safe.”

Alone among the remaining contenders as a military veteran, Gilmore also had an interesting tax plan that was the linchpin of his campaign. But jumping into the race in late July, when most people were contemplating a vacation and only a week or so before the first GOP debate, made what was already a tall task virtually impossible. One has to wonder what impact Gilmore may have had with an April or May announcement.

But Gilmore made a very salient point as he campaigned in New Hampshire:

“Every time they give Donald Trump 33 minutes on MSNBC, it’s like giving him $1 million. It’s wrong,” Gilmore said, pounding the table as his voice rose. “They’re shaping the race, they’re favoring candidates, and it’s been very detrimental to my campaign.”

Does that sound a little whiny? Perhaps: I think I could make the same case if my name were Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, or even Jeb Bush. Three of these gentlemen came into the race shortly after Donald Trump did (Jeb Bush got in the day before Trump announced) and all of them failed to make much of a splash thanks to the media blowtorch that is Trump. (Arguably, John Kasich’s campaign has suffered to some extent as well, although he timed his announcement just right to get on the stage at the first debate. Kasich’s New Hampshire finish is likely to be the high-water mark of his campaign, though.)

Yet if you read between the lines, I’m not entirely sure Gilmore isn’t going to endorse The Donald. Just take three passages from the last sentence I cited from Jim’s release.

“I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that our next President is a free enterprise Republican…” Given that Trump is the remaining business person in the race, that seems to be a good lead-in with respect to an endorsement.

“…who will restore our nation to greatness…” Sounds like “Make America Great Again.”

“… and keep our citizens safe.” With a wall at our border, perhaps? It all seems to be a play to give the endorsement to Trump, making Gilmore the first ex-candidate to do so.

So allow me to update my tier map:

Bottom tier: ~~George Pataki~~ (Marco Rubio), Donald Trump
Fourth tier: ~~Chris Christie~~, John Kasich, Jeb Bush, ~~Carly Fiorina~~
Third tier: ~~Rick Santorum~~ (Rubio), ~~Jim Gilmore~~, Ben Carson
Second tier: Marco Rubio, ~~Mike Huckabee~~, ~~Lindsey Graham~~ (Jeb Bush)
Top tier (and these guys were miles ahead of the rest): Ted Cruz, ~~Rand Paul~~, ~~Bobby Jindal~~ (Rubio)

I suspect my third and fourth tiers will be cleaned out by the time we get to the SEC primary in March.

Oh, and speaking of Virginia politicians, the other Presidential aspirant from that state opted not to make an independent bid. Said Jim Webb:

We looked at the possibility of an independent candidacy. Theoretically it could be done, but it is enormously costly and time sensitive, and I don’t see the fundraising trajectory where we could make a realistic run.

Considering Webb would have possibly been in the mix with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and perhaps a disgruntled Donald Trump, a third-party run wasn’t going to make a dent.

Odds and ends number 80

For awhile I wasn’t sure I would ever make it to the 80th edition of this longtime monoblogue series but I have finally arrived with more tidbits that require only a few dozen words to deal with.

Since this category has the item I’ve been sitting on the longest, I’m going to talk energy first. Some of my readers in the northern part of the state may yet have a little bit of remaining snow from the recent blizzard, snow that may be supplemented by a new blast today. But the fine folks at Energy Tomorrow worry about a regulatory blizzard, and with good reason: Barack Obama has already killed the coal industry, states are suing for relief from the EPA, and a proposed $10 a barrel oil tax may further hinder the domestic oil industry already straining under a price war with OPEC. So much for that $550 annual raise we received, as Rick Manning notes in the latter story I link – for the rest of us, that’s like a 25-cent per hour raise without the increased taxation that normally comes with a pay increase. Yet that quarter would be lost to taxation under the Obama scheme.

It’s interesting as well that the Iowa caucus results favored Ted Cruz over Donald Trump despite their competing stances on ethanol, as Marita Noon wrote, but Cruz’s Iowa win also emboldened others to speak more freely about rescinding the ban.

Speaking of Cruz and Iowa, over the last week we’ve heard more about third-place Iowa finisher Marco Rubio in New Hampshire, as Erick Erickson predicted we would. It’s obvious to me that the media is trying to pick a Republican candidate for us, so they have been pushing either Donald Trump (who is far from conservative on many issues) or Marco Rubio (who has been squishy on immigration and perhaps can be rolled more easily on the subject again.) Or, as Dan Bongino writes, it could be the left’s divide-and-conquer strategy at work once again.

It seems to me that today’s New Hampshire primary should bring the race down to about five participants on the GOP side. The herd will almost certainly be culled of Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Jim Gilmore based on results, polling, and financial situation, and that would cut it down to six. The loser between Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich should whittle the field to five in time for South Carolina and we will begin to see if Donald Trump’s ceiling is really about 25 percent.

Trump’s popularity has been defined by a hardline approach to border security, but once again I turn to Rick Manning who asks what Trump would do about Obamacare, He also shrewdly invokes Bobby Jindal’s name, since the policy wonk had a conservative approach:

Jindal understood that the Obamacare system has put down some roots, and tearing it out was not going to be an easy task that could be glibly done with the wave of a wand or a pronouncement from a podium. He understood that whatever health care system replaced Obamacare would set the tone for whether or not the federal government continued its expansion in scope and power. He understood that what we do about Obamacare is likely to be one of the most important domestic policy decisions that any president will make. So, he laid out his vision for what health care should look like in America. (Link added.)

Yet on another domestic issue New Hampshire’s neighbor Maine is making some serious steps in cleaning up their food stamp rolls. It’s a little scary to think that the Millennials and Generation X decided keeping the “free” stuff wasn’t worth actually getting a job (or taking alternate steps to improve themselves or their community.) Perhaps it is fortunate that these are childless adults.

Turning to our own state, Maryland Right to Life was kind enough to inform me that a rebadged “death with dignity” assisted suicide bill was introduced to the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate (HB404 and SB418, respectively.) The 2015 rendition never received a committee vote, but it also had a late hearing – this year the setup is a little bit more advantageous to committee passage and the number of sponsors (all Democrats) has increased. They thought they had enough votes to get it out of committee last year, and chances are they are correct.

I have postulated on previous occasions that this General Assembly session is the opportunity to plant the seeds of distrust Democrats desperately need to get back that which they consider theirs in 2018 – the Maryland governor’s chair. It will likely be a close, party-line vote but I suspect this bill will pass in order to make Governor Hogan either veto it (which, of course, will allow the press to make him look less than compassionate to cancer sufferers such as he was) or sign it into law – a course for which he will accrue absolutely zero credit from Democrats for reaching across the aisle but will alienate the pro-life community that is a vital part of the GOP.

Try as they might, the Democrats could not bait Hogan into addressing social issues during his 2014 campaign but that doesn’t mean they will stop trying.

On a much more somber note insofar as good government is concerned, the advocacy group Election Integrity Maryland announced they were winding up their affairs at the end of this month. As EIM president Cathy Kelleher stated:

The difficulty of maintaining a small non profit was a full time job and the responsibility fell on the same few individuals for far too long.

We can proudly say that in our 4+ years of operations, we made a difference in the way citizens view the record maintenance of the State Board of Elections and had an impact in the legislative process.

The problem EIM had was twofold: first, a lack of citizens interested enough to address the issues our state has with keeping voter rolls not just up to date, but insuring they are limited to citizens who are eligible to vote; and secondly just an overwhelming task considering there are over 3 million voters registered in Maryland. And for some of the counties that are more populous, the powers that be didn’t much mind having inaccurate voter rolls that may have had a few ineligible voters among them just in case they needed a few extra on election night.

And it’s that prospect of fraud which is among the reasons not to adopt National Popular Vote, as Natalie Johnson notes at the Daily Signal. It’s a good counter to an argument presented in the comments to one of Cathy Keim’s recent posts. After the angst of Bush vs. Gore in 2000, could you imagine the need for a national recount with states hanging in the balance?

I think the system can be improved, but there’s a time and place for that proposal and it’s not here yet. There’s also a time and a place to wrap up odds and ends, and we have arrived.

Debating the need

Apparently they had a debate last night.

I think I watched the first main event (since I didn’t get back home in time for the now-infamous “kiddie table” debate) but since then I have chosen to spend my time on other, more useful pursuits like doing my website. Unfortunately, until you get down to a manageable number of people (about five to six at the most) it’s not worth the effort. (Granted, the more recent warmup debates should have been quite good with only four people participating.)

But I wonder how the race would have gone had they used my original idea of randomly selecting six participants per debate and doing three in one evening. It’s probable that the general order may have stayed fairly close, but when you are depending on a poll to determine debate placement that has a margin of error larger than the amount of support some in the bottom tier were getting, there could have been people taken off the main stage who may have deserved a place. Who knows: if the Donald would have had the bad luck of the draw to be outside prime time in the first couple of debates he may be closer to the pack or even out of the race. Just food for thought.

It seems to me that the debates are now sort of like an NFL Sunday. In the 1:00 games you have the teams without a great fanbase or that are doing so-so…sort of like the early debate. It’s the 4:25 national game and the 8:15 primetime game that people care about – in fact, NBC gets to pick the game it wants in the last few weeks of the season, with some exceptions. So the prime-time game the other night would have been the Cruz Cowboys taking on the Trump Generals. (Yes, I had to borrow from the old USFL but Trump owned the New Jersey Generals so it fit. In fact, the ill-fated idea to move the USFL to a fall schedule was his.) Anyway, supporters of every candidate watch and keep score like a fantasy football game, and everyone is confident of victory. My social media was filled with commentary.

One thing that the debates were supposed to provide, though, was some winnowing of the field – so far it hasn’t changed a whole lot. With several governors in the race originally but the general political mood being that of seeking an outsider, 2016 wasn’t the year for Rick Perry in his second try or Scott Walker or Bobby Jindal in their first. Notably, Walker was the only main-stage debater to withdraw, although had he not he would likely have been relegated to the second-tier thanks to his polling support evaporating rapidly. Perry just missed the cut for the first debate to John Kasich and never really recovered, while Jindal never caught on (unfortunately.) On the other hand, people seem to hate how John Kasich and Jeb Bush perform in debates but they continue to qualify – meanwhile, the rules were bent a little bit to put Carly Fiorina in the second debate and Rand Paul in the most recent one.

But if you go back to the first of October (and I’m looking at the RCP universe of polls) you’ll find the following movement:

Trump +11 (27 to 38, with a range 22-41)
Cruz +8 (7 to 15, with a range 4-22)
Rubio -1 (13 to 12, with a range 8-17)
Carson -5 (17 to 12, with a range 9-29)
Bush -5 (10 to 5, with a range 3-10)
Christie +2 (2 to 4, with a range 1-4)
Kasich -2 (4 to 2, with a range 1-4)
Fiorina -5 (6 to 1, with a range 1-7)
Paul 0 (2 to 2, with a range 1-5)
Huckabee -3 (4 to 1, with a range 1-5)
Graham 0 (1 to 1, with a range 0-2)
Pataki -1 (1 to 0, with that being his range)
Santorum -2 (2 to 0, with that being his range)
They don’t poll for Jim Gilmore. I think he’s still in it.

We actually have 3% more undecided than we did before. But you can see that after the top four, picking the next tier can be tricky because several are polling under the margin or error. Even with these debates, the sheer amount of headlines Donald Trump creates have done more to pad his lead than the formal gatherings.

I imagine the bottom-feeders are putting their eggs into one basket at this point. Jeb Bush still has quite a bit of money, while Chris Christie, John Kasich, and George Pataki are playing to do well in New Hampshire. On the other hand, candidates with evangelical or populist appeal like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are counting on Iowa. I guess Carly Fiorina is basing her appeal on her gender, Rand Paul is trying to light a fire under his dad’s supporters in the libertarian part of the GOP, and Lindsay Graham is likely hoping to use his home state as a springboard.

But even with Bobby Jindal withdrawing – granted, he was only getting 1 to 2 percent – the only gainers since October are Trump and Cruz. Ben Carson’s meteoric rise is now a free fall; however, he’s still in the top four that command nearly 3 out of 4 GOP voters. The other 10 are fighting over that last quarter.

We will know by year’s end who will go on, as the fundraising totals have to be in. I suspect there may be fewer chairs needed for that debate.

A crappy way to start the evening

You know it’s been a bad day when this is what you see first thing on social media, and it refers to “has been to run” as past tense:

I cannot tell you what an honor it has been to run for President of the United States of America. My parents came to this country 45 years ago searching for freedom and a chance.

When I was born, we lived in student housing at LSU, and never in their wildest dreams did they think their son would have the opportunity to serve as Governor of Louisiana or to run for President.

They raised me to believe Americans can do anything, and they were right, we can. But this is not my time, so I am suspending my campaign for President.

Going forward, I believe we have to be the party of growth and we can never stop being the party that believes in opportunity. We cannot settle for The Left’s view of envy and division. We have to be the party that says everyone in this country – no matter the circumstances of their birth or who their parents are – can succeed in America.

One of the things I will do is go back to work at the think tank I started a few years ago – where I will be outlining a blueprint for making this the American century.

We must show the way forward on growing our economy and winning the war against terror, and especially defeating radical Islam.

I realize that our country is off on the wrong track right now. Everyone knows that, but don’t forget, this is still the greatest country in the history of the world – and every single one of us should start every day by thanking God that we are fortunate enough to be US citizens.

Now is the time for all those Americans who still believe in freedom and American exceptionalism to stand up and defend it. The idea of America – the idea that my parents came here for almost a half a century ago – that idea is slipping away from us. Freedom is under assault from both outside our borders and from within. We must act now, we do not have a moment to spare.

Now is that something you’d hear from Donald Trump or any Democrat? Don’t think so.

This truly saddens me: here was a candidate who I agreed with to a large extent on all of my key issues. Looking at them piece by piece Jindal was in my top five on every one. Every. Freaking. One. The wonk in me loved his detailed plans, which seems to come naturally if he led a think tank.

But if there were two things for which I would fault Jindal’s campaign, it would be these.

First of all, he got in too late. Granted, hindsight is 20-20, but a person who doesn’t have a great deal of name recognition needs to overcome that with an early start. Jindal was the first to announce after Donald Trump did on June 16th. Consider this: of the five candidates who announced after Trump, two are now out (Jindal and Walker), one’s never been a factor (Gilmore), and the stock of the other two has fallen such that Chris Christie fell out of the main debate this time and John Kasich is losing friends quickly with his debate performances. Jindal should have jumped in right before Memorial Day – that month probably lost him 5 or 6 points early on, and if he had been in that range he would easily have made the initial prime-time debate. He never got past the “kiddie table” debate where Carly Fiorina did.

The second is never adequately countering the prevailing “Louisiana is a failure” narrative. Making budget cuts is never popular, and Jindal took pride in having less spending even now in his final year of his second term, then his predecessor did. I think it’s a badge of honor in terms of right-sizing government but if you read the liberal Louisiana media each day it’s a drumbeat of bad news. Simply put, Jindal refused to raise taxes and that was his cardinal sin in the eyes of the media in Louisiana. The low-information voters were the ones giving him low marks on the polls despite the job creation record Jindal had.

Of course, the last time a very outspoken conservative governor was placed on a Presidential ticket, she was absolutely trashed in the media. But if a non-governor wins the nomination, he or she would be wise to consider Jindal as the VP choice given his executive experience. There’s no doubt the media is in the tank for Hillary so we may as well be pedal-to-the-metal conservative on the GOP ticket. Screw the establishment.

As for me and my choice, I may keep my powder dry and options open. Indeed, some candidates scored better than others but more information has come out and perhaps some issues take higher precedence with recent events. So we will see.

Pulling the plug

Apparently the GOP has had enough.

I didn’t watch the CNBC debacle the other night, but the political tongues are still wagging about it and RNC Chair Reince Priebus took the drastic action of pulling the remaining GOP debate slated for an NBC network off the air. To many the question is: what took you so long?

It’s long been thought that the news networks (with the exception of Fox News) are less than honest brokers when it comes to the GOP, yet our side dutifully went to them hat in hand to televise a share of the debates. As the story goes, the RNC was already suspicious of NBC. (since they own and operate the notoriously left-wing MSNBC) so they insisted the NBC debate be put on CNBC and stick to economic topics. As we now know, that did not happen.

Certainly Priebus was feeling the heat from the campaigns, some of which were slated to meet this weekend to discuss changes they’d like to see. (One of them was Bobby Jindal’s campaign, whose spokesperson Gail Gitcho called the top-ten debate criteria “delusional.” And she’s right, since polling at the early stage of a campaign is all name recognition.)

The suggestion they’re making sounds vaguely familiar to me: two prime-time debates each night, with the field for each randomly selected. That would have given everyone a shot to improve themselves, particularly in the first debate or two. It worked for Carly Fiorina, but as the debates go on, being outside the top ten becomes a self-perpetuating state, while being in the top ten doesn’t necessarily mean a candidate is doing well. Jeb Bush has better, really cool things to do, you know.

One thing which needs to be done in these debates is get some better questions. We don’t need “gotcha” questions, but substantive ones. Why not a robust debate on entitlements or birthright citizenship? There are several subjects where Republicans have legitimate differences, so let them go at it and even question each other – no time limit, and the moderator just keeps a little order.

Think about this, too: why don’t the Democrats ever do a debate on Fox News? I looked it up and over the last three contested cycles (2016, 2008, 2004) Fox News has shared a feed on ONE Democratic debate, out of about 40 or so. Ask yourself why they don’t try and expand their base and present their ideas to cable’s largest news audience, and maybe the idea of the mainstream media being characterized as a Democratic SuperPAC makes more sense.

It’s too bad I can’t moderate the debate, or at least ask the questions. If you want to discuss middle-class concerns – as these journalists, some of whom make millions of dollars a year, purport to do – get some questions from average folks about real issues they face. (No, fantasy football is not a real issue.)

I decided to do my own research before I made my decision, and I’m glad I did. When debates became more about entertainment than enlightenment, that’s where they lost this voter.

Some skin in the game

Even though he won the coveted monoblogue endorsement, I wasn’t really trying to make this an all-Bobby Jindal all the time site. Surely he’s spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars weekly on his own internet presence so Bobby doesn’t really need my help with making and sharing news.

But it seems as of late that Jindal is putting out stuff that’s, well, presidential. He grabbed the bully pulpit with his remarks on cultural decline the other day and now he has come out with a somewhat unique tax plan that makes the point people need to step up and take a little responsibility. Unlike many others in the race, Jindal believes that it’s a “terrible mistake” that nearly half of people pay no federal income tax. Instead, he proposes a modest 2% tax bracket for the lowest wage earners, with many others falling into a 10% bracket and the top bracket paying 25%.

Now that low top rate and the fact everyone pays will obviously get the Democrats and their class-envy allies screaming about tax cuts for the wealthy being paid for by everyone else. My advice to them: shut up. I’m tired of that rhetoric, particularly when we live in a nation where the top income earners pay far more in tax than their share of the overall wealth.

Even better from my perspective is that we’re not shooting for revenue-neutral here. No, this will bring less money to Washington so more stays in your pocket where it belongs. Jindal admits, “the only way to shrink the size and influence of Washington is to starve it.” Or, as I call it: an admirable start.

While this isn’t a substitute for the benefits of a consumption-based tax, Jindal makes an important nod in that direction by allowing tax-free savings accounts with contributions of up to $30,000 per year. If you can’t tax consumption, at least reward savings.

Winning my endorsement came not just because Bobby was well-versed in a conservative manner on the issues, but in large part because these positions are thought out and explained for the benefit of both the average voter and those who are interested in the wonkish side, like me. Compared to the Jindal campaign, too many others have the depth of a cookie sheet.

Finally, I want to play devil’s advocate for a moment. I can almost see the argument about how the states will have to step in and increase their budgetd because the federal government will have to cut out of necessity. This may be true – but wouldn’t you rather fight budgetary battles in Annapolis, Dover, or Sacramento than in Washington? Even after seven years, Jindal spends less money than his predecessor did. We praised Larry Hogan for only raising the budget by one percent, but imagine if he cut it nearly 10%.

We stand at a crossroads in this nation. Many seem to be conceding that our course is now just to do the best we can in hoping our freedom isn’t extinguished in one fell swoop, and seem to be happy with tamping on the brakes as we lurch toward a train wreck of our own making.

I look at things differently. People see Donald Trump as someone who would shake up the status quo, but I question his conservatism on a number of issues. He authored a tax plan which removes over half of taxpayers from the rolls, meaning the takers will always outvote the givers and the incentive to reduce government will be gone. In a nation formed on the principle of limited government, we retreat further and further from the ideal. Sooner or later we will be back where we started since Trump isn’t serious about addressing our runaway spending.

I spoke to my mom the other day, and I reminded her of what Washington is. Years ago we lived in a house where a colony of bees had taken residence under the porch. So my parents put out a piece of cardboard and spread a sticky substance on it – a couple days later it was full of bees. To me, Washington is that piece of cardboard and all that taxpayer money is the sticky stuff the bees flock to. The only differences are that we’re all stuck and we’re all being stung by that mass of bees that have taken up shop inside the Beltway.

It’s long past time to call in a beekeeper to put those worker bees in a more productive place. Bobby Jindal just might be that guy.

“We fill the culture with garbage, and we reap the result.” – Bobby Jindal

Today at RedState (and perhaps a few other outlets) Governor and presidential candidate Bobby Jindal wrote something that you probably won’t see as a thirty-second commercial nor as an uplifting stump speech. He warned us at the outset “this is going to be a sermon,” but I think of it more as tough love. Jindal writes:

These shootings are a symptom of deep and serious cultural decay in our society.

Let that sink in for a minute.

These acts of evil are a direct result of cultural rot, and it is cultural rot that we have brought upon ourselves, and then we act like we are confounded and perplexed by what is happening here.

Jindal goes on to describe in an almost breathless style a number of indictments about modern society, and you really can’t argue with them. As I said above, it’s a dose of tough love, with special emphasis on the the father of the Oregon community college shooter.

Bobby Jindal was born about 7 years after me, so he came of age in the late 1980s. At that time, we were in the early days of the “thug” culture glorified by rap music and just a few short years away from the beginnings of the video games Jindal railed against. (The Sony PlayStation was introduced in 1994 as the first of the modern crop of video game consoles.)

But then again, we have had parents fretting about the decline of moral standards for generations. Nearly 100 years ago it’s likely the parents of the 1920s flappers thought they would be the generation that went to hell in a handbasket; instead they reared the kids who were present for the birth of rock n’ roll and rocked around the clock, only to turn atound and raise my generation. Maybe that’s where they went wrong.

I think Jindal comes closest to hitting the grand slam, though, when he talks about the absence of the father in modern society.

Look at how fathers are treated in the popular culture – most are the long-suffering types who regularly get rolled by scheming kids smart beyond their years while the women run the show. In the reality of life, we find millions of children in families where they have brothers and sisters by multiple fathers. If they are fortunate, one of them may be with the mother but many rarely see their father.

The next question, though, is what can Jindal do about it? It’s an interesting question since government’s role in shaping culture should be limited. Let’s hope that now that Jindal has vented that he can advance the discussion with some policy ideas.