Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has suspended his campaign to become the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, marking the smartest political decision he’s made over the last thirty-four months.
I’ve come to the realization that this is not my time,” Jindal said on Fox News Channel in an interview with Bret Baier. “We spent a lot of time developing detailed policy papers. Given this crazy, unpredictable election season, clearly there wasn’t an interest in those policy papers.”
Jindal, 44, who is leaving office at the end of this year after completing his second term as governor, said he has not given much thought about whom he might endorse in the Republican presidential race. The remaining candidates rushed to praise Jindal in tweets and statements Tuesday night.
“Even though I’m not going to be a candidate for president, we had better elect the right president so that we can restore the American dream before it’s too late,” said Jindal, a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
Jindal had difficulty raising money; his campaign reported on Oct. 15 that it had just $261,000 cash on hand. His advisers acknowledged Tuesday that finances influenced his decision, although they said the campaign had no debt.
(Rucker, Costa, and Fahrenthold)
It would probably be fair to acknowledge that telling the GOP to “stop being the stupid party”, while it actually does sound really smart, probably wasn’t. Plenty who aren’t Republicans might actually applaud a line like that, but maybe there is a reason Mr. Jindal doesn’t have many conservative friends this season. And, no, that reason is not the fact that Bobby Jindal is at least as terrible a human being as he has been a governor. The incompetence and bigotry are actually assets this cycle.
But it’s true he probably didn’t help himself much with Republicans by pointing out the obvious in January, 2013.
Nor did he seem to impress anyone else when he prayed about it, decided to run for president, and fully embraced the requisite stupidity.
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Greenblatt, Alan. “The Stupid Party’s Candidate”. Politico. 23 June 2015.
Rucker, Phillip, Robert Costa, and David A. Fahrenthold. “Jindal suspends presidential campaign: ‘This is not my time'”. Washington Post. 17 November 2015.
Sink, Justin. “Bobby Jindal: GOP needs to ‘stop being the stupid party'”. The Hiill. 25 January 2013.
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