- 676,484: the number of votes received by candidate Bobby Jindal in the 2003 runoff with Kathleen Blanco for the office of Governor. I was one of the 676,484. Jindal lost.
- 699,275: the number of votes received by Congressman Bobby Jindal in the 2007 primary election for Governor of Louisiana. I was one of the 699,275. Jindal won.
- 673,239: the number of votes received by incumbent Gov. Bobby Jindal in his successful bid for re-election in the 2011 primary election. I was not one of the 673,239. Jindal won.
- Betray: bə·trā/ v. to fail or desert especially in time of need; to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to; to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling, as in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s refusal to perform the job to which he was elected.
- Betrayal: be·tray′al n. to abandon or desert; to turn one’s back on another; to delude or take advantage of; One who abandons his convictions or affiliations—as in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s betrayal of the 4.5 million residents of Louisiana.
- Epitaph: ˈepə·taf/ n. a commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument about the person buried at that site; a brief statement commemorating or epitomizing a deceased person campaign or something past—as in the political ambitions of Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Some may think it’s too early to bury Jindal’s presidential ambitions just yet, but it is our humble opinion that Roy Orbison summed it up more than 50 years ago with his 1964 hit It’s Over.
What little spark that still burned in his fading presidential hopes has been snuffed out by a fast-paced series of events beginning with his incredibly idiotic rant about the Islamic no-go zones in Europe which then morphed into a tirade by Jindal shill Kyle Plotkin over the tint or lack of, in Jindal’s “official” portrait hanging in the reception area of the governor’s office on the fourth floor of the State Capitol.
Whether or not blogger Lamar White’s comment about Jindal’s “white-out” of his portrait which (a) makes him appear almost anemic or (b) makes him appear as if the anemic version caught a little too much sun at Gulf Shores (depending on which is the “official” portrait), the entire episode quickly descended to the level of ridiculous political theater.
And when the dialogue is reduced to arguments over the shade of color in a portrait Jindal has run out of issues for serious public debate and can no longer be taken seriously.
As a great singer, the late Roy Orbison, crooned back in 1964, It’s over.
And as our favorite writer, Billy Wayne Shakespeare from Denham on Amite would say (with certain literary license):
“Not that I loved Caesar Jindal less, but that I loved Rome Louisiana more. Had you rather Caesar lived Jindal were President and (we) die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead Jindal were forgotten, to live all free men?”
—Brutus Bob, from Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene II.
“I have come here to bury Caesar Jindal, not to praise him. The evil that men do is remembered after their deaths, but the good is often buried with them difficult to find. It might as well be the same with Caesar Jindal. The noble Brutus Bob told you that Caesar Jindal was ambitious. If that’s true, it’s a serious fault, and Caesar Louisiana has paid seriously for it.”
—Marc “T-Boy” Antony, from Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene II
If there was any lingering doubt, that was erased late Friday (notice the timing) when he released a laundry list of yet another round of budget cuts. As has become his practice, all bad news is announced late on Fridays so the impact will be lessened because people tend not to follow the news on weekends.
Among those cuts:
- Department of Environmental Quality: $2.5 million;
- Department of Health and Hospitals: $13 million;
- Department of Transportation and Development: $16.65 million.
Jindal also some miraculously came up with $42.8 by sweeping several agencies, including $9 million from the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly.
The governor’s office was not spared, of course. Biting the bullet along with everyone else, Jindal’s plan included a reduction of $10,000 in travel expenses for his office.
That’s correct. Health care is taking a $13 million hit while Jindal is sacrificing roughly the cost of one trip to appear on Fox News or to Washington D.C. for something like his recent attack on Common Core at an event sponsored by someone like oh, say the American Principles Project.
He is pulling $9 million from the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly but don’t worry, he will forego a trip to Iowa or New Hampshire. Yeah, yeah, we know trips to Iowa and New Hampshire are paid out of his campaign fund. But when he takes those political trips, he takes along a detail of state police security personnel whose transportation, lodging, meals and overtime must be borne by the state treasury. It doesn’t take long for just one of those trips to eat through $10,000.
If Jindal is not acutely aware by now that any chance he had to be president has vanished into that $1.6 billion deficit projected for the coming year—a far cry from the $900 million surplus he inherited when he took office seven years ago.
If he does not know by now that his political credentials are shot, he can compare today’s 6.7 percent unemployment rate to the 3.8 percent unemployment when he took office in 2008. That wasn’t supposed to happen after industrial tax incentives increased from a couple hundred million a year to more than $1 billion a year over that same period.
If he is still wondering why his approval rating is lower than President Obama’s, he may want to direct his inquiry to the presidents of Louisiana’s colleges and universities who have seen their budgets cut by $673 million since taking office—and who are now anticipating another $300 million in cuts.
If he still doesn’t get it, he could ask the 250,000 low-income uninsured adults how they could possibly be upset at his decision not to expand Medicaid to cover their health care—all because of his philosophical criticism of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare. And while he’s at it, he might wish to ask Baton Rouge’s low-income uninsured residents in the northern part of East Baton Rouge Parish how they’re going to make out after he closed Earl K. Long Hospital last year which forced those residents to seek emergency care at Baton Rouge General Medical Center-Mid City which announced this past week that it is closing its emergency room because of the financial losses incurred from that overflow from Earl K. Long.
Michael Hiltzik, writing for the Los Angeles Times on Friday (Feb. 6), to say, “Jindal has promoted his plan with a string of distortions about the ACA and the health insurance marketplace that suggest, at best, that he has no idea what he’s talking about.” http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-lesson-of-louisiana-20150206-column.html
And if Jindal is still a bit hazy about why his chances of becoming president could make a possum optimistic about making it across a busy interstate highway, he might wish to review his glowing optimism over the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) that preceded a drawdown of the agency’s reserve fund from a healthy $500 million built up by former OGB CEO Tommy Teague, whom Jindal fired, to less than half that amount.
After he’s done all that, then maybe he’ll finally understand why Louisiana’s middle income growth was sixth worst in the nation (-4.9 percent, as in a negative growth) in 2013. Maybe, just maybe, it will finally dawn on him that the widening income gap is not good news for the state’s poorest citizens. Perhaps someone will explain to him that the state’s poorest 20 percent of households averaged earning $8,851 in 2013 (that’s household income, not per capita). There may even be a chance that he can explain why the income share of 2.8 percent among the state’s 20 percent poorest was down from 3.2 percent share in 2009 while the wealthiest 20 percent held nearly 52 percent of the state’s income—a figure even higher than the national figure and a dramatic increase from 2009—even as the state’s poverty rate increased.
We’ve been beating this drum steadily for nearly five years now and just when we were beginning to believe no one was listening, no less than three national news organizations (the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico) have jumped into the fray with witheringly harsh stories critical of Jindal and his train wreck of an administration in Louisiana.
And to think, it took an incredibly silly diatribe about Islam in London and a prayer meeting in Baton Rouge sponsored by a fundamentalist fringe element to get the attention of the national media that decided, at long last, it might be time to peel back the layers of righteousness and morality and take a long, hard look at the real Jindal and his actual record.
Funny, isn’t it, how often the big picture is overlooked until someone stumbles onto some little something that sets much bigger events into motion?
And now, at long last, we feel we can safely say it’s over. Done. Kaput. We have witnessed, in the incredibly short span of only a couple of weeks, the complete cratering of a political quest.
Cue Roy Orbison. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufgrNRPFJn8&list=RDufgrNRPFJn8#t=0
Louisiana Voice 
Literary, literate, and accurate. Right on, Tom.
Your efforts have also been an important factor in revealing the truth about piyush the pathetic poseur. We are not done with him yet.
Cue yet another ditty, with apologies to the Beatles:
He’s a real nowhere man
sitting in his nowhere land
making all his nowhere plans for nobody
I personally have been beating that drum now for seven years now. I purposely coined the name L’il booby in numerous newspapers. I caught hell for that but I knew I would eventually be vindicated. I said what was going to happen to the Charity System. I was crucified in the papers. I warned the state workers and u don’t know want to know what I was called for putting that out there. I warned of what his real intentions were when he cut the Stelly Plan and the corp. tax. It had nothing to do with tax relief and jobs and had everything to do with wrecking agencies financially to declare them broken and the only fix was privatizations. That’s just the first term.
Before the second election I warned the teachers he was now coming after them and education. Well I got shoo shooed over that too. As it turns out I ended up being 100% right in all areas. Guess what booby? After all ur screw ups who ended up being right and who was wrong. For sure as hell not you and the sheeples taken to the cleaners in this state.
You saw it before I did.
Thanks to both of you guys and to the many others who refused to let this little punk get away with his morally bankrupt behavior. It is so nice that we can begin talking and thinking about Jindal in the past tense. He is the lamest of lame ducks. And the national media is finally landing some well-deserved body blows. For proponents of good government, yesterday was a red letter day. I love it that even The American Conservative wrote a scorching piece on Jindal yesterday. As for the 2016 polls, each one is a punch in the nose to Jindal’s delusional hopes.
The little guy tried to use us as stepping stones, but he has truly come a dead end. I wonder if even Fox News can find a place for the little feller. I wouldn’t say this about a nice person, but Jindal has a face that was made for the radio.
As for Kristy, she better find a new employer that could use a good liar. It will be time to start taking the pictures down from the walls before you know it. Goodbye and good riddance. I look forward to reading about these corrupt, immoral individuals in the history books, which are sure to rake them over the coals.
Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Kline. Jindal implemented Milton Friedman’s Chicago School of Economics (and ALEC’s) principles of creating a crisis that destroys government institutions and puts into place previously unacceptable changes in order to take over and transform that institution into their desired model – designed to enrich a privileged few through crony capitalism. Same thing in several other states at the same time. They really are trying to turn the U,S. into a third world country.
Finally the chickens have come home to roost.. A long time in the making but thanks to Tom and Lamar and CB and Robert Mann and many others who have been so diligent in exposing the corruption of disproportionate means in our state. Unfortunately, our current governor is still in office. He and his administration has left a terrible ordeal for the people in Louisiana. Our state has suffered financially, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. His poor attempt to become POTUS has left not just the country laughing at us but the world stage he so thought would pander to him like we have. Many people are talking about which state they plan to relocate due to the fallout of higher education.
Hmmmm. Have the Louisiana legislators about had enough? We have not been able to rely on them in the past!!! Will someone please tell them that the bully on their playground has no Power!!! House Speaker Kleckley, Will you start the impeachment now or do we have to wait for election time and clean out the house and sweep out the senate floor?
We the people of this great state are sick and tired of the pilfering, secrecy, lying, stealing, distorting, bullying, narcissistic and grandiosity being committed by the Jindal administration. A fitting quote from the movie, O, Brother Where Art Thou: “Since we been followin’ your lead, we ain’t got nothing but trouble.”
And yet, the latest polls still show that nearly half of the people polled approve of his record.
I can proudly say I have never voted for Booby for any office.
Knowing what I know now, I truly wish I could say that.
Sadly I was duped the first time. Oh well, confession is good the soul, so they say.
Me, three.
Me four. At least we can take comfort in the fact that, the only time we voted for him, 2003, he lost.
@Stephen, Robert and Tom: Well there’s no truth in advertising when it comes to politicians so we can all say we honestly got hoodwinked. The “package” wasn’t what it said it would be.
I am old enough to remember Jindal from his days at DHH and was in a position to carefully observe him and be very aware of his activities there and at the UL System, both of which suffered greatly during his tenure. I would never vote for that creature for any office and begged friends and relatives to remember the damage he caused and not vote for him when he ran for congress and for governor. Those of us with long memories were scoffed at by a lot of people who are now sadly admitting they were taken in by jindal’s blue-sky campaign talk.
Several people have told me they had no idea he would do the things he’s done and I have replied they must be blind, deaf and illiterate, because he has done precisely what he said he would do during his campaign – “right-size” (y’all remember that word?) and shrink government, privatize everything possible, reduce business and personal taxes…..he’s done everything he said he would do, and oh dear, that’s not what people thought he would actually do and certainly not what they wanted and expected. They did not know what that meant, and I am talking about educated people.
People who did not think through what the conservative agenda really means.
Jindal must have been born on a Friday at 4:30.
If you want to read a “biography” of Jindal, read People of the Lie, by Scott Peck (of A Road Less Traveled fame). It explains in detail the narcissistic, self aggrandizing, and the essence of evil that is Bobby Jindal. It also details, the destruction that such people leave in their wake, with no regard for those he has harmed
You realize of course that while the effects of his policies have been devastating to the general populace, he cares not one whit. His narcissistic blind ambition prevents him from neither apprehending nor caring. Furthermore the greedy jelly-spine obsequious toadies that comprise the state legislature have no more interest in improving the lives of their constituents than Jindal for fear of interruption of their cupidity and ambition
Amen to that…“It’s time for a new Republican party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. We’ve had enough of that.”
My only disagreement is with the sense of betrayal. There has been no “betrayal.” Jindal is exactly what he has always and obviously been.
I moved to Louisiana in 2006, so just in time for Jindal’s second run for governor. I was utterly bemused that anyone would vote for someone who was so obviously a narcissist and an opportunist. I looked at his record and read what people who had worked under him at DHH had to say, and I could not understand how anyone could be fooled.
But so many in the South vote on single ideological issues. To say nothing of being incredibly poorly educated. Not stupid, but uninformed and misinformed and therefore, easily led and misled. That people agreed to the Louisiana primary system that gives the election to anyone who wins the primary is evidence enough of that; the dictatorial powers granted to the governor is additional evidence, as is the constant amending of the constitution as a substitute for actual legislation.
What is appalling is that something like 46% of the voters in this state continue to approve of what he is doing. That points to some serious, endemic social and cultural problems, not the least of which is the educational system. My opposition to vouchers is driven as much by the knowledge that the majority of parents are using them in order to prevent their children from being educated as it is by fiscal concerns.
In any case, I agree with the poster above that the question now is how we hold the legislator’s feet to the fire. They are complicit in this. None of it could have happened without their support and approval. How do we force them to act in the best interests of the people of the state, not in the best interests of their re-election campaign?
Suzanne said: What is appalling is that something like 46% of the voters in this state continue to approve of what he is doing.
Do you have any links to that info? With his poll numbers as low as they are in this state, I’d like to see what it is that voters “support”, unless you are talking about the general Republican talking points. La, is now part of the “solid South”, solid for the Repub party. It is no different than Alabama or Mississippi.
That people agreed to the Louisiana primary system that gives the election to anyone who wins the primary is evidence enough of that;
I’m sure that you are aware that Cali has the same “open” or jungle primary system:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/03/californias-new-jungle-primary-gets-its-second-ever-test-on-tuesday/
So…different? Yes. Unique? No.
I’ve got to get to work, so I’ll have to look for the article with those numbers, but they were in the Advocate recently — and yes, they were put out by Jindal’s campaign, so they are suspect.
No, the system in California is not the same. In Louisiana, if one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in the primary, he wins. There is no general election or run-off, if you prefer that term.
In California, there is always an election with two candidates.
@suzanne: Ah I see what you are saying now about the Cali primary.
I don’t read The Advocate site as much as nola.com so I did not see those numbers you’re talking about. However, if they came from one of his groups I’d be very suspicious of them Thanks for replying to my comment.
Thanks Tom & all. So glad to see the back of a defeated Jindal! January 10, 2016, we will have a new (very broke) governor. It does not have to be David Vitter! The great positive of this horrendous situation we are in is that we have a hell of a social network to positively impact future elections. John Bel Edwards is our best hope for governor. He is holding numerous speaking engagements at schools & other public facilities across the state. FYI to those in the NOLA metro area – Edwards will be speaking at Chalmette High School’s Cultural Arts Center next Tuesday, Feb 10 from 4:00 to 5:00. Everyone is welcome. The future of Louisiana is in our hands!
John Bel Edwards is very likely to make the runoff if he remains the sole Democrat (or remains as the one with the most name recognition if other lesser-known Democrats opt to run) in the race. His chances, however, of defeating David Vitter in a heads-up race are slim and none and slim left town.
I asked Rep. Edwards a question at his BRPC appearance about 8 months ago regarding whether it would be a priority of his administration to abolish useless occupational licensing boards like the interior design board (I’ve asked the same question of other candidates and have videotaped their responses). Edwards avoided the question and responded that he had a friend who had complained about infringement of rights of property owners, a response which was wholly and completely unrelated to the question I posed.
Rep. Edwards cannot win an election without support from folk who look to vote Republican as a party who is perceived (emphasis on that word because Jindal gave words but produced no actions) to help small business by getting rid of red tape like occupational licensing for low-wage occupations (LA ranks worst in the nation in licensing 71 such occupations). I gave him a golden opportunity to appeal to that voting segment (including me), and he fumbled badly! That’s not going to be a winning formula for occupying the Governor’s Mansion. He had a low-risk opportunity to broaden his appeal, and he chose to make a concerted effort to let it pass him right by.
Rep. Edwards would have done well to have said “I don’t know. Let me do some study of that issue and I will get back to you and others with my position statement.” That makes me far more comfortable than having him (or any politician for that matter) feel compelled to provide an answer to every questioned they are asked while on the campaign trail. They can’t know everything and need to learn to acknowledge that. So please don’t write him off just yet. Let’s encourage him to occasionally say “I don’t know.”
Jindal’s so-called Presidential quest is nothing more than being able to make face-time with any potential Republican nominee — for consideration of Jindal as their U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary.
Before we consider even THIS quest laughable, recall that Jindal worked in that agency under Tommy Thompson in the second Bush administration. Indeed, Jindal had a major role in crafting the 2003 Medicaid and Medicare Modernization Act — legislation that extended prescription coverage to Medicare recipients (yet only available through HMOs, prohibiting price controls on pharmaceutical manufacturers, and creating the infamous prescription “doughnut hole.”
Jindal remains politically dangerous unless Louisiana legislators can be compelled to institute impeachment proceedings for budgetary malfeasance, or otherwise defy his ruinous rule.
2015 is an election year to hold legislators accountable for their culpability with Jindal…
I saw Jindal for the flim-flam man he is while he was still in the US House when he was still being hailed as the wonder boy. I begged, pleaded, cajoled people I knew not to vote for him, but I say hurrah for those who saw the light after one term. There’s no zealot like a convert.
The pile-on continues. Today, 2/8/2015, a St. Anselm’s poll of New Hampshire was released. It has Jindal at 3%, tied for eighth place with the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Clowns, all three of them.
Gonna be a good circus, I tell ya. Already is, in fact. What makes it good clean fun is knowing that Jindal has no chance. If he did, it would turn into an edge-of-your-seat horror show.
OK, so we will soon be officially rid of Jindal. What is much more important is what we see coming. Virtually any Republican is going to do the same thing Jindal did, because that is what the Republican’s are promoting. Beware of Vitter. He has beady eyes. He could be worse than Jindal, but is smarter and more experienced in political deception. We the people face a long recovery from Jindal’s policies and tactics. The key question is, how does a state and its people recover from policies that have driven it to the bottom of the bottom within 6 years and there are two more years left. Reversing this is no easy task.
Slight correction: It has been seven years as of last month (He took office in January of 2008) and we now have less than 1 year left of Jindal. The governor’s election is this fall and the new governor takes office next January. The FEDERAL election (president, congress) is in 2016.
I consider Jindal as nothing more than a “Republican Obama”. While there may be differences in ideology they both govern in the same way. Neither has had a real job and neither knows how to manage. They both play to the less informed, ideoligical voters, and both promise but don’t deliver.
Real intelligent leaders seek to surround themselves with those who are more intelligent and of varying opinions. That’s really the only way to ensure you make the best decisions. Challenge your people and allow them to challenge you. This process provides an abundance of information and promotes healthy discussion and in the end good decision making.
Jindal’s (and Obama’s) problem is that he has yet to encounter individuals he would acknowledge as more intelligent. He apparently thinks all the “good” ideas are his… which also equates to all “his” ideas being good. Jindal approaches an issue with a preconceived decision in mind and only listens to feedback and people supporting that idea. In the end, anyone providing differing ideas is pushed aside and replaced.
It’s the same way he runs state agencies. To continue in his “graces” the agency heads continue to feed Jindal’s narcissistic ego by implementing his ideas, good or bad. When things go wrong, which they are bound to do with this type “leadership”, instead of changing course, they either blame outside forces, events, or people or they try to cover up. Sometimes, like now… they do both.
Jindal talks a lot, (at a rapid pace used to control the narrative and direction and appear to many, intelligent) but says nothing substantive. Does it really mean much that 16 Bic pens were used last night by 8 workers creating 52 pages of notes for 5 drafts of his speech?
Jindal has systematically placed virtual control of our government in the hands of private groups. I remember right after Jindal and his team came on board, there was a big push for privatization to “save money”. Every agency head wanted to do it, even if it made the service worse or it didn’t work for the agency. All were afraid to say, “This won’t work for us.” The reality is, state government does not always have to be inherently inefficient. It is simply managed that way. Real solutions provide efficient and effective services, but there is so much resistance driven down from the top, those small islands of government efficiency are disappearing rapidly.
I feel sorry for whoever comes after Jindal. It’s sorta like looking around after a serious natural disaster, and finding there is no “fixing it”, it is just easier to bulldoze and start over.
I hope in the next Governor’s election we don’t elect a repairman when we need a bulldozer operator.
very insightful comments, jw
Read about our Governor at http://www.americanconservative.com
Sorry correction, theamericanconservative.com