With Popularity Fading at Home, Is Jindal the New Romney?
Monday’s article on the nation’s least popular governors did not include Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, because he is not up for re-election in 2014. (Louisiana’s next gubernatorial election will be in 2015, and Mr. Jindal will not be eligible, having served two consecutive terms.) But recent surveys suggest that Mr. Jindal has become very unpopular in his home state amid a series of battles on fiscal policy. A March poll from Southern Media & Opinion Research put Mr. Jindal’s approval rating at just 38 percent, against 60 percent finished disapproval. His numbers had been similarly poor in a February survey by Public Policy Polling.
Some national political commentators are treating the news as being self-evidently injurious to Mr. Jindal’s chances of capturing the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Obviously, Mr. Jindal has plenty of time to turn around his image in Louisiana. But if he doesn’t, would Republicans really consider nominating someone who is so deeply unpopular among his own constituents?
Actually, you don’t have to go back very far to find a precedent for when Republicans did exactly that. Their nominee last year, Mitt Romney, was very unpopular among Massachusetts voters by the time he his single term as governor in 2006.
Those of us who, think of possibilities as this as “purgatives” that will hopefully, speed the point at which, the Republicvan Political System is “clear” of such shite.