Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared he was dropping his bid for the Republican presidential ticket Nov. 17, putting paid to a campaign that failed to pick up steam from the get-go. His close aides blamed the media for not including Jindal, a Rhodes Scholar and the youngest candidate, in the main presidential debates, as well as the lack of adequate financial backing, as the main reasons for getting out of the race.
After close to five months of campaigning as the underdog garnering just 1 percent of the Republican vote, Jindal conceded during a Nov. 17, prime time Fox News interview saying, “This is not my time.”
For more than a year, Jindal attacked his own party for lacking ideas, and as chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, he chastised leaders for coming out looking like the “Stupid Party” bereft of substantive solutions against President Obama’s healthcare or other initiatives.
He turned even more sharply right to appeal to Christian evangelicals during his campaign, on issues like abortion and education. The downswing in his state’s economy did little to help his stature as a candidate.
Jindal also alienated much of the Indian-American community for what some believed was a desperate attempt to rope in the right wing by ostensibly abandoning his ethnic roots, when he claimed he was against the idea of hyphenated Americans. However, Dilip Paliath, president of the Republican Indian Committee, told News India Times Jindal’s stand against hyphenated Americans did not lose him any ground within the Republican fold “That doesn’t hurt him with Republican primary voters,” Paliath said.
Indian-American Republicans appeared split on Jindal leaving the field, according to Paliath. “They are not unified. Some may be disappointed, but others probably not,” Paliath said. “There’s no unified perception.”
Some Indian-Americans may have become alienated from the party and its politics during the weeding out primary process. Anoop Kansupada, who works in an investment firm in New York City, told News India Times he no longer considers himself a Republican after seeing the field of candidates and didn’t really care what Jindal decided to do. “I’ve learnt not to listen to anything until it really matters. Right now it’s like a clown car and a clown race,” Kansupada said. “I care about who is going to be President, but not for the nomination.”
At a conference call just hours after Jindal said he was out of the race, his campaign strategist Curt Anderson said the Governor quit in the face of what has become “a bizarre race.” However, Jindal’s own campaign had descended into repeated diatribes against other candidates. He was virulent in some of his attacks on Republican opponents, calling billionaire talk-show host Donald Trump, a “narcissist” an “egomaniac” and “shallow” as well as “lacking intellectual curiosity.”
Yet his campaign manager Timmy Teepell and Anderson insisted he had fought the good fight and won considerable support in the key state of Iowa. “The Governor is a brilliant man and a tireless campaigner,” Teepell said, adding that his strong debating skills would have shown up in the Presidential debates. “It never occurred to us that he would be excluded from the debates,” Teepell added.
Paliath expressed disappointment that some “good candidates” like Jindal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Ohio Governor John Kasich got no traction because of the fascination with Trump. “It’s just a very different race this time.”
“We worked for the Governor because we thought he was the most capable of being President,” Anderson said. He also expressed skepticism about Jindal joining a future Republican administration. “But every option is on the table,” Anderson said. Paliath said Jindal may change his mind if the right opportunity came along because he is basically a “policy person.”
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