Louisiana Voice

If someone wanted to write a textbook on how not to run for national office, the first two chapters should be about Bobby Jindal speeches.

It was bad enough when Piyush was chosen by the Republicans to give the rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union address in 2009 but he compounded the error when he served as the keynote speaker at last Thursday’s New York Republican state dinner.

He underwhelmed his audience.

Some observers said it appeared that Jindal was auditioning for Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate.

Musing at prospects of Jindal’s being selected to run with Romney, perhaps Philip Dynia, associate political science professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, said it best: “He would be Mitt Romney’s Sarah Palin.”

Dynia, however, wasn’t finished. “If he’s (Romney) going to shake his Etch-a-Sketch and Bobby Jindal comes up, something’s wrong there.”

Perhaps the New York Republicans would have been better advised to have retained Dynia as their speaker.

When you do a Bobby Jindal search on YouTube, that 2009 State-of-the-Union rebuttal is the first result to pop up.

At the time, even Fox News anchor Brit Hume said with a straight face, “This was not Bobby Jindal’s greatest oratorical moment. The speech read a lot better than it sounded.”

If Romney picks Jindal, Dynia said, “That rebuttal speech will be played over and over and over and over.”

But why wait until then? Watch it here now:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-respone-to-o_n_169704.html

Perhaps, though, Dynia is less than objective. He did, after all, contribute $15 to the 2012 Obama campaign and $205 to his 2008 campaign, as some unidentified Jindal spokesman sniffed.

But back to last week’s speech.

Good Lord.

It was bad enough that he opened with one of the lamest jokes out there, one that Henny Youngman would have rejected on his worst day: “My father walked to school. Uphill. Both ways.”

Rim shot. “Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your wait staff.”

Cue the crickets.

Governor, they said tell a joke, not be a joke.

He should have done his homework. The last time a Louisiana governor told a joke in New York, it met with similar silence.

It was nearly four decades ago, in 1973 and Long Island’s Newsday described Gov. Edwin Edwards in his “electric blue tuxedo” telling a joke that was both racist and sexist.

“There were 12 Polish men,” Edwards said, “who assaulted a German woman. She screamed, ‘Nein, nein!’ and three of the men left.”

Silence.

Jindal did attempt to score some political points—or to at least pay homage to campaign benefactor Aubrey McClendon.

McClendon’s Chesapeake Energy Corp. is the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas and he is fracking up the landscape in the Haynesville Shale field in northwest Louisiana with some 90 billion gallons of water used in the hydraulic fracturing procedure to extract the natural gas beneath the earth’s surface.

Chesapeake Energy also is one of the 300 or so corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which writes laws for friendly state legislators.

One of those laws is Senate Bill 436 by Sen. Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches), also a member of ALEC. SB 436 would make it easier for the Sabine River Authority to sell some 600,000 acre-feet of water per year to a group of investors who are generous Jindal supporters.

McClendon has personally contributed $4,800 to Jindal’s campaign and his company kicked an additional $16,000 for Piyush.

In all, Chesapeake has contributed $64,750 to various Louisiana candidates since 2008. Sixteen of those candidates, including Long, are members of ALEC.

So, it should have come as no surprise when Jindal brought up the subject of hydrofracking for natural gas in his address. The process, he said, has produced jobs and lowered energy costs in Louisiana. “This is clearly an effective technology,” he said.

Oh, it’s not as if Jindal didn’t try to whip the crowd into a frenzied state. He did. But try to imagine, if you will, Piyush trying to stir a crowd with his oratory.

We couldn’t either.

He reminds us of Ferris Bueller’s economics teacher Ben Stein—without the charisma.

“I really only have two complaints about this president,” Jindal thundered, arms waving in a manner more reminiscent of C3P0 than a fiery Louisiana politician. “Number one is that he is the most liberal ideological president since President Jimmy Carter to occupy the White House. My second complaint about this president is that is the most incompetent president to occupy the White House since President Jimmy Carter.”

[This would be where they would normally cue the audience applause.]

Jindal then launched into a lengthy explanation of the Louisiana retirement systems’ unfunded accrued liability as if anyone in New York knew—or cared—what he was talking about.

But talk he did.

For 45 minutes.

It seems we may have found an alternative to water boarding.

How many different ways can you say, “Three things….,” “status quo,” “The fact of the matter is,” “The reality is,” or “bold agenda?”

No wonder private conversations broke out at the tables during his speech.

No wonder New York Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos got applause when he said, “I’m going to speak a little shorter than the prior speaker.”

No wonder they cheered when Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb said, “My father gave me some great advice, too: be brief and be gone.”

Jindal even had trouble unloading his book Leadership and Crisis—for free.

His team placed copies of the book on the chairs throughout the Sheraton ballroom where he was speaking. Afterward, some in the audience joked about trying to give their copies away.

Take my book….please.

Henny Youngman lives.