In the battered GOP, Jindal still shines

If the polls are right and Barack Obama beats John McCain today, the contest to become the new face of the Republican Party starts tomorrow. Frankly, even if McCain defies the odds and pulls it out, there will still be talk of where the GOP goes from here.

Maybe the mantle will fall to primary also-ran Mitt Romney. Maybe it'll be vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Or maybe it'll be Bobby Jindal, who, unlike Romney and Palin, had the good luck and good sense to largely sit the national race out.

Rather than get dragged into a civil war over the party's post-Bush direction, Jindal stayed above the fray. He vocally supported McCain, but he never got stuck delivering the campaign's increasingly desperate talking points.

At first, it seemed that Jindal might have missed his big break when he skipped his prime time speaking gig at the Republican National Convention to quarterback Louisiana's Gustav response. But his absence just enhanced his brand among party leaders, who, still stinging from President Bush's disastrous handling of Katrina, reveled in Jindal's televised show of competence.

Romney still has loyalists, but his wholesale reinvention since his days in Massachusetts makes him an imperfect conservative standard bearer.

Palin still seems to have a hold on the party base, but Jindal can match her movement conservative credentials, her youth and her non-traditional background. Yet unlike Palin, who ended the season with extraordinarily high negatives, Jindal isn't divisive, and he rarely finds himself in over his head. For conservatives looking to redefine the GOP as smart, conciliatory and idea-oriented, Jindal could easily fit the bill.

Actually, even before today, he was starting to fill it.

Jindal held four fund-raisers for his own re-election bid on the road this fall, in Gainesville, Fla., Houston, Washington and Greenwich, Conn., even though he won't go before voters until 2011.

"The governor has made it clear that he wants to run for re-election, " said his spokeswoman Melissa Sellers. "There are folks all over the country that want to support the governor, and the governor needs their support."

Jindal also headlined fund-raisers for other candidates on the ballot this year, Missouri gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof, Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker and Texas House candidate Pete Olson, and Sellers said that he had "many more requests than his schedule could accommodate."

He sat for lengthy interviews with national magazines and appeared on network talk shows.

He also started making the rounds of interest groups that make up the GOP core electorate. Last spring Jindal was featured at a National Rifle Association event. Later his month, he travels to Des Moines to speak to the Iowa Family Policy Center. When the Republican Governors Association meets in Miami next week to start hashing out the party's future, he'll be there.

That's a whole lot of profile-raising for someone who just wants the job he already has.

Still, despite all this activity, Jindal discounts talk of national aspirations. In fact, he says he not only plans to seek reelection, but also has ruled out a presidential campaign in 2012. Actually, Louisiana's political calendar makes any other option tricky. The presidential primaries will be hitting full throttle exactly when Jindal would be running for his second term.

On the other hand, Jindal has allowed himself to be drafted for jobs before, and if Obama is president and appears vulnerable, things could change.

Let's say they don't, and 2016 turns out to be the date to watch. Eight years may seem like an awfully long time to wait, until you consider that in 2016 Jindal will still be younger than Obama is today.

Jindal's always had luck on his side. At just 37, he also has time.

Source: blog.nola.com