RSS Feed MenuIt was a dud – that’s the consensus on Bobby Jindal’s response to the President’s address. Indeed, the criticism has been heated. He’s been panned by Republicans and Democrats, dismissed by commentators, and even mocked on late-night television. Needless to say, many of his fans – count the Weekly Standard and Rush Limbaugh among them – insist that he shouldn’t be underestimated.
This raises a larger question: can Gov. Jindal move past last Tuesday’s performance and get elected President?
Handicapping the White House race is an American pastime. Even though the Mall has barely been cleaned up from the last inaugural ceremony, people have begun contemplating the next President. And, yes, much ink has already been spilled on Gov. Jindal’s future prospects.
Many have an opinion – yet practically no one has attempted a substantive analysis.
Here on FrumForum.com, I’m pleased to offer a definitive analysis drawing on data going back to the 1960s. Based on this, I come to a clear conclusion: Bobby Jindal will not be elected President in 2012 – or any other time.
Why? The data is clear. Practically no one who offers the minority party response to the Joint Sessions or SOTU addresses achieves high office – or practically any Washington office.
A quick google search suggests this coveted speaking slot, first created in 1966) may be the death of political careers. Consider recent orators. J.C. Watts, Tom Daschle, Xavier Becerra, Steven Largent, Gary Locke, where are you now? (Well, we know where Locke is, but Commerce seems to be a retirement job for forgotten politicians.)
In the last 3 decades, only one speaker has made it to the White House: a young governor who spoke in 1985. But Gov. Clinton didn’t give the sole response. In the early years of the minority party response, several people often weighed in. (In 1985, Democrats offered up a handful of Democratic voters, with the discussion aided by various party luminaries, including Mr. Clinton.) Even ignoring the difference between the 1970s responses (which largely reflected the party hierarchy) and today’s responses (where the party chooses a “star”), more than 80 people have been tapped to speak after the President, and just 2 have eventually succeeded the President.
Hyperbole aside – I don’t think this really is a definitive analysis but it is historically interesting – this raises an interesting question: why is it that the speech after the Speech is usually such a dud?
Here are some reasons:
1. The strategic error. The President spends weeks on the speech. His opponent tries to compensate by delivering a pre-written response. How do you react to a speech you haven’t heard before with prepared text? Answer: poorly. The resulting speeches are thus overly general, filled with cliches, and somewhat flat. Gov. Jindal made this error.
2. The structural problem. The President speaks to Congress; a governor – not part of that governance structure – can’t really respond fittingly. He’s telling Washington what to do while not being in Washington, or wanting to tie the hands of his beltway colleagues. Is it really possible for Gov. Jindal to credibly but vaguely criticize the stimulus and the budget?
3. The tactical error. President Obama, like most Presidents before him, was substantive; Gov. Jindal, like most people responding to the President, talked about himself, attempting to introduce himself to the nation. But that tactic looks inevitably light-weight – particularly now, in the middle of a recession after a sober address on the economy.
4. The ambivalence problem – in this case, Gov. Jindal’s. Was he introducing himself to New Hampshire primary voters? Core Republicans who will donate to his PAC? Middle Americans for November 2012? Or was he really critiquing the President? The young Republican agonized over this; in the end, he couldn’t ultimately decide (and thus the jarring Reaganesque rhetoric, pseudo-presidential tone, and psychobabble).
Unlike several other writers for this blog (including its editor), I’ve never been a White House speechwriter and thus can’t offer up constructive ideas on how to respond to the President after a big Congressional address. Perhaps I’ll make a simpler suggestion: the post-speech speech itself is over-rated and ambitious pols should decline the opportunity.
With that in mind, Gov. Palin had a good week – not in what she did, but what she didn’t. Who says she isn’t smart?
krove // Feb 28, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Chekote. You are right. I have been wondering for weeks when someone (anyone) is going to get before the public and show graphically and with clarity what thel has happened and where we actually stand. There seems to be a fear about admitting the truth of the situation because the markets would fall, well if the truth drops the market then the market is overvalued. It’s time to face the music take the consequences and move on. It will come sooner or later so you may as well get it done. Is there a need for “too big to fail” banks in the system anyway. Whats wrong with small to medium sized banks?
krove // Feb 28, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Churl, fair point let’s see how he does. I think he has damaged his chances badly but time will tell. Same with Obama he will need at least 18 months to get anything done to judge him on. The secret is not to allow ones ideology to cloud real judgments. The electorate is not so uninformed or disinterested as they have been. You can’t hide “fail” anymore.
Chekote // Feb 28, 2009 at 12:59 pm
krove. Exactly my point. We need to take the bad medicine and move on. Once we are out of the current situation we will have to do some forensics and determine exactly how we got here. There are a few principles that we should apply in developing a solution: 1) you don’t reward bad behavior. I doesn’t matter whether it is an individual or a company. Rewarding bad behavior will increase more bad behavior and will demoralize the people who believe in personal responsibility. 2) we cannot begin with the premise that no one can lose their home or job and that no company can be allowed to fail; 3) the government should no be in the business of picking winners and losers; 4) you don’t bring down the 92% of the people who are meeting their obligation just to save the 8% who can’t.
krove // Feb 28, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Whoops!
Louisianas transportation department plans to request federal dollars for a New Orleans to Baton Rouge passenger rail service from the same pot of railroad money in the presidents economic stimulus package that Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized as unnecessary pork on national television Tuesday night.
The high-speed rail line, a topic of discussion for years, would require $110 million to upgrade existing freight lines and terminals to handle a passenger train operation, said Mark Lambert, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
Jindal on Tuesday delivered the official Republican Party response to President Barack Obamas address to Congress. He criticized the stimulus package passed by the Democratic-majority in Congress and the president and noted examples of projects that he found objectionable.
While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending, Jindal said. It includes $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland.
There is no high speed rail from Las Vegas to Disneyland or anywhere else in the bill by the way.
sinz54 // Mar 1, 2009 at 8:40 am
Part of the problem we conservatives are facing is that so much of the business community has betrayed the principles of capitalism–and deserted us–by running to Washington with their tongues hanging out for corporate welfare. It’s hard for us to make a case for a free market when some of America’s greatest companies, from Merrill Lynch to General Motors, are all throwing up their hands and saying they can’t succeed without a Federal welfare check. (Why does Wall Street need welfare checks???) I suggest that a talking-point for us should be to highlight those American companies which continue to succeed without taking any corporate welfare checks from Washington. And there are many–they just don’t get the headlines because they’re not the ones facing bankruptcy right now. Let’s try to show the American people that there still are CEOs out there who neither need nor want corporate welfare from Washington for their companies. GM wants a welfare check. FedEx, UPS, Wells Fargo, etc. do not. Let’s highlight them.
sinz54 // Mar 1, 2009 at 8:51 am
Chekote: “For the response, the GOP should have prensented an alternative, specific plan instead of generalities.” Of course. But the reason Jindal didn’t present a “specific plan” is that the GOP doesn’t have one yet. The GOP is still arguing with itself: Cut capital gains taxes for investors? Cut SS payroll taxes for the middle class? Build infrastructure or not? How to reform health care? Etc. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone. It takes *time* and thought to come up with a plan to fix something as complex as the mess we’re currently in. Look at the ridicule that Geithner got when he wasn’t more specific with his own plan for the financial industry. Right now, the GOP doesn’t have a coherent plan in its hip pocket, other than Bushism (which already failed), and McCainism (which was already rejected by the voters). Beyond that, all the GOP has is a bunch of half-baked ideas proposed by various factions within the GOP–but not a plan the GOP could sign up to and put in its 2012 platform. Perhaps by 2010, the GOP will have synthesized a new position on the economy. But they sure don’t have one now.
Chekote // Mar 1, 2009 at 11:54 am
“I suggest that a talking-point for us should be to highlight those American companies which continue to succeed without taking any corporate welfare checks from Washington.” Excellent point Sinz.
sinz54 // Mar 1, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Krove: On this very blog, last week, I said that if avowedly conservative GOP governors took Federal stimulus money for their states, it would leave the GOP open to the charge of hypocrisy. I was ridiculed for making that assertion. Your reaction to Jindal, and the reaction on the left-wing blogosphere, have proved I was right. If an eloquent, knowledgeable guy like Jindal can’t sell economic conservatism to the voters of his own state–who already elected him–he sure won’t be able to sell it to the rest of the nation.