Bobby Jindal takes his shot at redefining the GOP

By Richard K. Barry 

It's never too early to start thinking about the 2016 election. Are you with me? Yes? Whatever. I'm with me. And one of fun things I'll be doing is discovering which prospective Republican presidential candidates begin to set out a path, a narrative, to distinguish them from the failure that was 2012. Will they say Romney was not conservative enough, or that he was just a bad candidate? Will they say the party needs to become more inclusive to court Hispanic and African-American voters or more progressive on so-called women's issues? Whatever the case, it really is never too early to start listening.

I give you Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R), who is out of the gate arguing that the Republican Party needs to embrace its inner populism and reject all things big, saying:

We've got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything. We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.

Hmmm. The party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street, of toys for rich people? To whom could he be referring? Any guesses?

It was a curiosity watching Republicans attempt to paint Obama as tied to Wall Street and big money because of the bailout, though I doubt a lot of people bought it.

In any case, make way for Bobby Jindal's Republican Party, the party of working Jills and Joes everywhere.

My guess is it will take a while for the new messaging to shake itself out. Maybe this is one possibility.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)