Jindal Is Out Of The Race - Others Should Follow Suit

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal finally woke up and read the political writing on the wall. He realized that he had absolutely no chance to win the Republican presidential nomination, and has withdrawn from the race. As the chart above shows, he had almost no support from the voters (and 29% of them said they would NOT vote for Jindal).

Here is some of what he posted on his Facebook page yesterday:

I cannot tell you what an honor it has been to run for President of the United States of America. My parents came to this country 45 years ago searching for freedom and a chance.

When I was born, we lived in student housing at LSU, and never in their wildest dreams did they think their son would have the opportunity to serve as Governor of Louisiana or to run for President.

They raised me to believe Americans can do anything, and they were right, we can. But this is not my time, so I am suspending my campaign for President.

Jindal is not the only Republican who is wasting everyone's time (and money). Gilmore, Graham, Pataki, Santorum, and Huckabee are in a situation very similar to the one that faced Jindal. None of them have any chance at all of actually winning the nomination, and staying in the race does nothing but feed their own narcissism.

And they are closely followed in their presidential delusions by four other candidates -- Christie, Paul, Kasich, and Bush. The surprise of this group is Jeb Bush. He was once a frontrunner, but now about half of all Republicans say they would NOT vote more him (a higher percentage than for any other GOP candidate).

The same argument could be made for the candidacy of Democrat Martin O'Malley. He gets a bit more support (around 6%), but nearly half of all Democrats (47%) say they would NOT vote for him. Far smaller percentages say that about Sanders (16%) and Clinton (14%). Meanwhile, Clinton maintains a 34 point lead over Sanders (63% to 29%).

These numbers come from a new University of Massachusetts Poll -- done between November 5th and 13% of a random national sample of likely primary voters. They queried 318 Republicans and 381 Democrats. The margin of error for Republicans is 6.4 points, and for Democrats is 6 points.

Clinton Numbers Look Better Than Other 2016 Hopefuls

It is just an electoral fact that voters most likely will vote for a candidate they know (familiarity) and like (favorability). Considering this, the Gallup Poll questioned 1,013 randomly chosen national adults between July 7th and 10th on their familiarity with and favorability for the top 16 presidential candidate (5 Democrats and 11 Republicans). The poll has a margin of error of 4 points.

The numbers should make Hillary Clinton feel good about her chances of being elected president (assuming she decides to run). Here numbers are far better than those of anyone else. About 91% of the population is familiar with Clinton (26 points better than her closest possible GOP opponent), and 55% view her favorably (about 22 points better than the most popular Republican). In fact, Clinton was the only candidate to score above the 50% mark in favorability.

The pleasant surprise for Democrats is that Joe Biden, while he didn't come close to Clinton's numbers, was able to outpace all the Republicans in both familiarity and favorability. He scored 15 points better than the closest Republican in familiarity, and 5 points better than the closest Republican in favorability. Both of those numbers exceed the margin of error of the survey.

What A Mismatch !

I watched President Obama's address to Congress and the nation a couple of nights ago, and the Republican response to it. Since then, I just can't shake the feeling that this was one of the greatest mismatches of all time.

What the hell were the Republicans thinking? Did they think they had to answer one man of color with another? They should have learned their lesson when they tried to run Alan Keyes against Obama in the senate race a few years ago, and got badly beaten. It does you no good to present a token alternative "man of color",if that man has no real substance.

The Republicans are trying hard to find a token to make it look like they appeal to others besides white people. But so far, all they've been able to come up with is Alan Keyes, Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal. That's pitiful.

What they don't seem to understand yet is that President Obama is not a "token" put up by the Democratic Party. He is a man of substance, who ran against the best the party had and beat them fair and square. Tuesday night he showed that.

The president looked like a man who understands our problems, knows what needs to be done and knows how to get it done. Jindal looked like a whiny kid parroting what his parents had told him.

After watching both speeches, the following sports analogy came to mind. Remember when you were a kid and were choosing sides to play some sport? Obama looked like the kid you would always choose first. Jindal was the reason you didn't want to choose last, because you would have to choose him and you knew he'd screw up.

This can't be the best the Republicans have to offer. If it is, the 2012 election will be as big a mismatch as Tuesday night was.