Now is the time for Bobby Jindal to pause and examine whether he realistically has a chance at successfully running for national office.
I offer this purely as fodder, for, in fact, Jindal has little-to-nothing to do with the contents of today's commentary.
Who I want to talk about, instead, is Buddy Roemer and, by extension, the state of Louisiana and whether or not – by marginalizing, even ignoring, Roemer – the Republican Party is also, by extension, dissing the state of Louisiana.
My argument: To be taken seriously as a candidate for President – or, at least, to assume legitimacy – one must be either a sitting or former Governor or a sitting or former Congressman or be very, very individually wealthy.
Roemer commonly expresses bafflement at the notion that he is the only candidate for the Republican nomination who was both a Governor and a Congressman – and to that I'll add that, as a successful banker in the years since leaving the Governor's mansion, he likely has a pretty good stack of cash reserves at the ready.
So, as we witness the ceaseless rounds of GOP debates and withstand the results of daily polling: Why no Roemer?
His campaign has been so trivialized that you rarely hear the terms Buddy Roemer and White House without the prefix “Quixotic quest.”
Can you imagine a former Governor and Congressman from, say, Ohio, being denied a place at the podium at the debates?
It's implausible to conceive that any candidate with those credentials from any other state – even Alaska! - would be denied such access to American voters and the media.
So, when the GOP stiffs Roemer, they're stiffing Louisiana.
OK, sure: Losing his re-election bid as Governor to Edwin Edwards and David Duke at the same time is certainly a blot on Roemer's resume.
But that says much – MUCH! – more about Louisiana's residents as a whole than it does about Roemer as an individual.
So there's that and, well, sometimes Buddy Roemer can appear a little.....kooky.
But, other than that.......
So, that's why Bobby Jindal should take a look at his chances on a national platform when he presumes his time has come.
The question is: Will anyone even let him get on the platform.
Since he's only from.....Louisiana.
