“DOWN IN THE SWAMP CATCHIN’ WHATE’ER HE CAN, TRYIN’ TO MAKE A LIVIN’ HE’S A LOOSIANA MAN…”

6/15/08

The appearance of Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal on “Face the Nation” this morning will doubtless lend credence to prognostication that John McCain (Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam?) will select young (37) Mr. Jindal as his running mate.

As loyal readers know, I am officially out of the political prognostication business (Funny how so many sentences start that way of late, eh?), so I will say that Mr. McCain (Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam?) should not select Mr. Jindal as his running mate not for the one obvious, or even the perhaps a touch less obvious, reason, but for a far more compelling reason that will not even occur to Mr. McCain (Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam?).

The obvious reason is that if one’s campaign consists of touting one’s military service and stridulously vituperating that one’s opponent is far too inexperienced to be President and is especially ingenuous in foreign affairs, selecting a 37 year old running mate with no military experience and zero foreign policy background tends to dilute one’s argument. The perhaps slightly less obvious reason is that selecting a guy named Piyush Jindal, who was born a Hindu but converted to Catholicism, would tend to detract from the major argument of legions of McCain supporters (an argument with which Mr. McCain (Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam?), of course, has nothing to do), to wit, that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Yes, I know that there is a distinction between Islam and Hinduism and between Catholicism and the United Church of Christ, but these are “subtle” distinctions lost on multitudes of McCain acolytes.

Despite the compelling nature of both of the above arguments, the major reason that John McCain (Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam?) should not select Mr. Jindal as his running mate is that Mr. Jindal has never seen a private sector payroll. This absence would be acceptable, even laudatory, for a Democrat, the party of government uber alles. But it should be fatal for a Republican, the party that laughably trumpets itself as the party of small government. However, this blemish on Mr. Jindal’s record will not even occur to Mr. McCain (Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam?). Why? Because Mr. McCain has never seen a private sector payroll.

A few years back, it was fashionable to attack one’s opponent with the (usually) rhetorical question “Have you ever met a payroll?” Now, the party of small government is about to nominate a candidate for president who has never even been on a private sector payroll. And there is a chance, albeit a slight one, that it will nominate as his running mate a man who also has never seen either side of a private sector payroll.

And people ask me why I am no longer a Republican.