McCain's visiting Louisiana this week, but why?
Because he's going to meet with Bobby Jindal.
McCain To Meet With Jindal
John McCain will huddle with vice presidential aspirant Bobby Jindal during a trip to New Orleans later this week, sources close to the campaign confirm to The Fix.
McCain's trip to Louisiana on Wednesday was the cause of much head scratching in the political world as it was not in keeping with a week of planned stops in battleground states.
But, the meeting with Jindal, who has been the state's governor since 2007, suggests that McCain himself is deeply engaged in the process of picking his second-in-command and that the youthful Jindal is under serious consideration.
(Worth noting: Conservative columnist Bob Novak is reporting -- and Matt Drudge is touting -- that McCain will make his vice presidential pick known by the end of this week.)
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal ® (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Jindal, at 37, is widely regarded within the Republican party nationally as one of its rising stars and has been touted as the best choice for vice president by a variety of party luminaries ranging from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) to talk radio celebrity Rush Limbaugh.
In a recent profile of Limbaugh, New York Times magazine reporter Zev Chafets wrote: "As for politics, Rush has already picked his candidate for the Conservative Restoration: Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a 37-year-old prodigy whom Limbaugh considers to be a genuine movement conservative in the Ronald Reagan mold -- 'fresh, energetic and optimistic in his view of America.'" Gingrich has called Jindal "America's most transformational governor."
If McCain picked Jindal, it would have several immediate echoes in the race.
First, McCain would essentially cede one of the main pillars of his argument against Obama: experience. Jindal is a nearly a decade younger than Obama and, although he served in Congress before being elected governor, his foreign policy resume is at least as thin as Obama's.
Second, and more positively for McCain, naming Jindal would be a major symbolic step in fundamentally re-branding the Republican party. Jindal, an Indian-American, would put a whole new face on a party that is widely seen by voters as controlled by old white men.
A Jindal pick is the definition of unorthodox. But, in an election cycle where the Republican brand is as badly tarnished as at any time in recent memory, a "Hail Mary" (or "Hail Bobby") may be warranted.
