Bobby Jindal is smarter than most

Red States:

The first time I saw Bobby Jindal, he left Jack Welch, John Sweeney, and a roomful of corporate bigshots, union leaders, and people who generally like to hear themselves talk absolutely dumbfounded.

It wasn’t the first time he’d done this sort of thing, and certainly not the last.

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In this meeting, Thompson had walked into a vituperative buzzsaw in the person of Leo Gerard, head of the United Steelworkers. Stout, vulgar, and mustachioed, Gerard was not interested in debate or discussion, but in browbeating Thompson and the business leaders around the table into submission. His policy views were bluntly communist. With a stack of papers at his side, Gerard would cite an odd statistic, use it as the basis for why the American health care system should be more like Sweden’s, then doodle on his notepad while others responded.

The meeting fell apart within fifteen minutes. Thompson just didn’t know how to handle this creature. He quickly found there was no give and take on health care with Gerard—even moving leftward in small areas would never satisfy the union leader. And where Thompson would try to respond with alternate statistics or his knowledge of the situation, Gerard would fall back on anecdotes about workers bleeding in the streets while fat cats got the best health care that money could buy.

Bobby Jindal, at that time a senior policy advisor at HHS, arrived late to the meeting, cracking the door and slipping through. He is a slim and quiet man, with an easygoing smile—but always with the underlying intensity of those truly dedicated to the tasks in front of them. I knew who he was, but had never seen him in person before.

After a few minutes of watching Jack Welch roll his eyes as Gerard launched into another tirade on the virtues of socialist health care, he stepped toward the table.

“Mister Secretary, if I may interject?” he asked. Relieved for the possibility of some help, Thompson nodded assent.

Off the top of his head, Jindal started going down the list. He snapped Gerard’s smaller concerns like dry twigs, citing statistics and anecdotes as if they were memorized specifically for this moment. The larger socialist arguments he hacked into little bits—this won’t work, here’s why it won’t work, and here’s three places where they tried it and it didn’t. He was polite, he was intelligent, and he was passionate. He was ruthless.

Gerard sat, silent and sullen. He tried to respond at one point, but got tied up in knots. He shuffled his papers. He took a sip of water. And he was quiet. Everyone was.

In five minutes, Bobby Jindal made the case for free market solutions, for individual liberty, and for health care that caters to what people need, not what unions want. He did what none of the other men in the room were capable of doing. And it seemed as if it was as easy for him as breathing.

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There is much more. He is actually leading Breaux in the polls now. Oh, and don't miss the end of this long article where he describes how he delivered his third child, a son. I think that he would be the best choice for Louisiana and maybe with all the evacuees gone this time, the reminder of Louisiana voters will agree.