Not long after Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the Republican party cannot afford to be the “stupid party,” his approval rating among his own base of supporters plummeted. Now Governor Howdy Doody has done it again, and this trespass may be even more egregious.
“Balancing our government’s books is not what matters most … (It’s) a nice goal, but that shouldn’t be our primary objective,” Jindal told a packed ballroom at the Renaissance Grand in downtown St. Louis for the Missouri Republican Party’s Lincoln Days.
“We must not become the party of austerity. We must become the party of (economic) growth,” Jindal said. “We have fallen into a trap of believing the world revolves around Washington.” [...]
“As conservatives, we are falling into these sideshow traps” instead of hammering at the message of economic growth, said Jindal. “We seem to have an obsession with government bookkeeping.”
We can’t be the stupid party, and we can’t be the party of austerity? What does that leave for Republicans?
I will delight in Bobby Jindal’s self-immolation in front of the Lunatic Base of the Republican party, and for what it’s worth, his assessment is more or less correct, but I have to wonder who is advising him.
Who among his advisers is gullible enough to believe that this kind of talk will play well with his own base, potential primary voters, or the establishment? He’s already offended his base by calling them stupid, and now he’s questioning the merits of austerity, something the establishment wing of the Republican party is beholden to.
I’ve seen no evidence that suggests Republicans are ready to accept responsibility for their faults or commit to moving in a new direction. They may have settled on the fact that they aren’t willing to blow up the economy through default to fully realize their grand designs of austerity, but the buck stops there. Even now some Republican senators are calling for dismantling Obamacare to avoid sequestration.
