Jindal: Bayou wunderkind

Just a few days into his internship with Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.) in the early 1990s, Bobby Jindal felt he could do more than just sort the mail. He walked into McCrery’s office and asked for “substantive” policy work. McCrery gave it to him; he told the Brown University student  to write him a paper on the problems of Medicare.

“I’m thinking, ‘I’ll never see this guy again,’ “ McCrery said.

{mosads}Two weeks later, Jindal dropped a thick manuscript on his boss’s desk. McCrery, impressed, recalled thinking: “Was this guy for real?”

Jindal, now the governor of Louisiana, is poised again to get ahead. He appears to be on Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) short list of running mates, having been invited to the senator’s Arizona ranch last month with other veep prospects. Jindal has become a staple surrogate for McCain on cable news and hosted McCain’s prime-time speech on the night Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) claimed the Democratic nomination.

In many ways, Jindal is what McCain is not: a young executive from outside the Beltway with cultural conservative bona fides. He’s also a Rhodes Scholar, a healthcare wonk and the youngest, as well as the first Indian-American, governor. His barrier-breaking biography is reminiscent of Obama’s.

“I’ve seen this Obama campaign before, and it was in the ‘03 Jindal race” for governor, said Phillip Stutts, Jindal’s campaign manager that year. “His ‘change you can believe’ was about a young, intelligent candidate with a great family and a ton of ability who could come in the state and shake things up and bring honor to state politics.”

Jindal fell short that year, winning the most votes in the first round of voting but losing to Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco in a runoff. But Stutts said that Jindal refused to play dirty with Blanco, who had questioned Jindal’s experience in ads and had one supporter who called Jindal, who converted to Catholicism, a Hindu and an Arab-American.

“We wanted to go out and hit back,” Stutts said. “And he said that this campaign is going to be a positive campaign.”

Despite losing, Jindal raised his profile as a fresh face with a clean past. He went on to win a House seat in 2004 and then, after Blanco’s response to Hurricane Katrina was criticized, the governor’s mansion last year.

Jindal’s backers for the No. 2 slot, a group that includes Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist, say that despite his age, Jindal has more experience than Obama.

{mospagebreak}Jindal already had a reputation as a conservative reformer and a healthcare expert when he first ran for statewide office. In 1996, he had served as the state’s health director, where he championed cuts in Louisiana’s largest state government department. In 1998, he was appointed executive director of a federal healthcare bipartisan commission, headed by then-Sen. John Breaux (D-La.). (Breaux and most of the commission advocated for a “premium support,” market-based approach similar to the one Jindal espoused as an intern, McCrery said.) Jindal went on to become president of Louisiana’s public university system and, in 2001, an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), serving as chief policy adviser to then-Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Democrats will likely highlight Jindal’s time at HHS in the Bush administration should he be put on the ticket. Democrats have repeatedly said McCain will represent a third Bush term, a claim that McCain has denounced.

If McCain chooses Jindal, he will likely point to Jindal’s executive experience. Since taking office in January, Jindal has called a special legislative session so lawmakers could send him the ethics reform package he campaigned on. He also hopes soon to sign bills supporting the teaching of creationism, school vouchers and strict limits on stem cell research funding.

{mosads}McCain backs stem cell legislation and voted against the Medicare drug benefit bill, a measure that Jindal rallied for at HHS. Jindal also opposes the government negotiating Medicare drug prices, which McCain backs.

Regardless of their few policy differences, Jindal would likely be a loyal soldier who would not attract controversy. McCain could deploy Jindal, a tireless worker who speed-walks down corridors and stays relentlessly on message, to undercut Obama’s campaign with his own conservative, Republican brand of change. Jindal, who speaks in a tone more understated than Obama’s, has already begun doing so, appearing on several television interviews each week on McCain’s behalf.

“He talks about change,” Jindal said of Obama in one cable news interview last week. “He’s talking about changing things like raising taxes. He’s talking about things like eroding our Second Amendment rights. He’s for gun control. He’s talking about, I would think, weakening the way we defend our national interests.”

When asked about the vice presidency, Jindal has routinely said, “I’ve got the job I want.” Jindal declined to comment for this article.

But his age — having turned 37 on Tuesday, he’s just two years older than the minimum age for a president — has raised questions over whether he’d be the best choice for McCain.

“Bobby just got sworn in on Jan. 14,” said political analyst Charlie Cook. “This is way, way, way too early for Bobby. He needs to get a term of statewide office under his belt, then needs to get some accomplishments, beyond a very impressive ethics package, through.”

And while Louisiana Democrats have yet to turn on him — state Sen. Eric LaFleur (D) said he’s been “a good governor” so far — he has hardly built the track record that voters are looking for in a national candidate.

“His heart is certainly in politics and moving up, but we can’t say that he’s stayed in one place for any given period of time where we can look back and judge him,” said LaFleur, who noted that Jindal has been in more appointed positions than elected ones.

McCrery has seen himself that Jindal isn’t one to wait. It was McCrery who helped an eager Jindal get his first public service job.

Jindal was 24, fresh out of Oxford and working as a McKinsey & Co. consultant when he dialed up McCrery, who hadn’t heard much from him since the internship. Jindal asked McCrery to recommend to the Republican front-runner for governor, Buddy Roemer, that he appoint Jindal to become the state’s health director. McCrery said he would, but asked Jindal if he would accept a deputy post.

Jindal replied that he would not. When Roemer lost to another Republican, Mike Foster, Jindal again got McCrery to make the recommendation. Foster eventually tapped Jindal for the post.

McCrery still thinks that Jindal would be best served by waiting.

“If he turns our state around, eight years from now people won’t be talking about him as vice president,” McCrery said. “They’ll be talking about something higher.”