Calling in the Dragon Slayer squad

The utterly predictable Louisiana Governor's race took it's most predictable turn to date this morning as the Times-Picayune rushed to the aid of GOP candidate Bobby Jindal. Jindal had come under fire in recent weeks over some of his published writings on the nature of Catholicism. Despite Jindal's complaints that his opponents are unfairly making an issue of his religious beliefs, these articles are indeed fair game in the campaign because

1. These articles are published publicly under Jindal's own name
2. Jindal himself frequently makes a campaign issue out of his spirituality.
3. Some of the stuff is downright nutty

However, the lede in Jan Moller's T-P item may as well have been written by a Jindal staffer.

BATON ROUGE -- Before he began climbing the ranks in the Louisiana Republican Party, gubernatorial front-runner Bobby Jindal, the conservative son of Indian immigrants, endured years of emotional and intellectual struggle as he left behind his family's Hindu faith and embraced Catholicism.

It's a journey that is detailed in seven articles Jindal wrote between July 1994 and February 1998, and which became the focus of intense controversy this week when the Louisiana Democratic Party launched a TV commercial in North Louisiana accusing Jindal of insulting Protestants.

....

Citing words culled from one of the articles, the Democrats' ad says Jindal "insulted thousands of Louisiana Protestants" by describing their beliefs as "scandalous, depraved, selfish and heretical."

But the picture that emerges from a full reading of the articles is not one of intolerance or bigotry, but rather of an inquisitive young man who went through an intense period of struggle and revelation as he transitioned from a skeptical Hindu to the deeply religious Roman Catholic who now rarely misses a chance to inject spirituality into the campaign dialogue.

Doesn't your heart just ache for this conservative young son of immigrants and his intense period of struggle and revelation? If it's this kind of intense intellectual inquiry that transitions one into the sort of adult who votes 100 percent of the time for George Bush's bloody, "scandalous, depraved, selfish and heretical" (according to most mainstream Christian doctrine anyway) Iraq war, then no, I'm sorry I'm not buying it.

It isn't surprising that the T-P would be so quick to protect it's precocious wunderkind. In LA Gubernatorial elections, the major media generally stands ready to send in the cavalry after the most conservative "business friendly" candidates. It also isn't terribly surprising that Jindal and his supporters would cry "owee" once these allegations began to surface.

What is disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, is the stupid and dishonest way in which the LA Democratic party has made the response easy for Jindal by badly mishandling the "Jindal on Religion" material. Democrats had been making some headway with a series of breaking-the-Jindal-myth style ads. Having established that Jindal was.. well.. less than honest or genuine about nearly everything he has taken on in public life, Democrats had an opportunity to "catapult the propaganda", so to speak, by maybe floating the fact that Bobby Jindal claims to have actually confronted and exorcised a demon and maybe wondering aloud just what kind of charlatan we were dealing with here.

Artist's conceptualization of Jindal's demon

Instead they chose to triangulate after the Protestant vote by seriously misrepresenting some of Jindal's milder theological musings thus putting themselves squarely on the defensive side of the "religious intolerance" charge. It may be the dumbest thing I've seen Democrats do.. and I lived through the Dukakis campaign.

This blunder will make an already difficult to defeat Jindal that much more secure as the campaign reaches its anti-climax. Unless something drastic happens between now and October, Bobby Jindal could win in the primary.

The last time a candidate became Governor of Louisiana without having to face a runoff opponent was in 1987 when incumbent Edwin Edwards called "no mas" after having run second to Buddy Roemer in the primary. Roemer's upstart campaign was fueled by widespread dissatisfaction with government "corruption" in the wake of a federal prosecution of Edwards on racketeering charges brought by a Republican appointed US Attorney. Roemer was the Jindal of the day in the LA media establishment.. himself something of a flaky young conservative wunderkind "reformer" who promised to "Slay the Dragon" of Louisiana corruption. And slay it they did ushering in a bold new "Roemer Revolutionary" era of... popping rubber bands, legalizing gambling... and waiting for David Duke to show up.

Twenty years later, Jindal is running on a similar "Roemer Revolution" platform. He is riding the latest anti-corruption wave generated by a new series of federal prosecutions brought by a Republican appointed US attorney. He also.. it would seem.. has a similar buzz among the LA media establishment to Roemer's Dragon Slayer Squad. And now, with Harry Lee's endorsement, Jindal the juggernaut may be uncatchable.

This is not to say that such things are preordained. But they are being allowed to transpire by professional political operatives in the LA Democratic party who are paid to understand that they are happening.

Defeating a heavy favorite like Jindal takes more than just telling the "truth about his record".. although that is necessary. A successful challenger would find a way to tap into an overriding and voter moving source of energy. And right now, in Louisiana, that energy cometh from anger.

Ultimately, the real problem for Jindal opponents is that they have no candidate able to tap into the anger that's out there right now. This election... like so many these days... is primarily about hatred. People hate the government.. they hate everything that's happened since the flood... they hate "corruption"... they hate the rampant crime in New Orleans... a lot of the state just hates New Orleans. As atmospheric background they also hate the tanking economy and the war.

A smart candidate can easily tie Jindal to most or all of those negatives I just named. But there aren't any smart candidates out there. As a result, Jindal gets to play the role of the "outsider" come to... like Roemer... "slay the dragon". It's golden.. and it may be too late to do anything about it.

Afterthought:
As I'm writing this.. it occurs to me that there is indeed one candidate waiting in the wings with a particular talent for campaigning upon a wave of fear, anger, and hatred. But I'm not so sure we're ready to open that can of worms just yet....