Why is Bobby Jindal so unpopular in Louisiana?
The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed Jindal with an approval rating of only 28 percent. Fifty-nine percent of Louisiana voters said they disapprove of the job he is doing. According to PPP, those numbers make Jindal the least popular Republican governor in the country and the second most unpopular governor overall (Democrat Pat Quinn of Illinois is the lowest rated governor in PPP’s polling). At 41 percent, President Barack Obama actually boasts a higher approval rating than Jindal in Louisiana, according to PPP.
PPP’s latest also found Jindal, who’s thought to be considering a 2016 bid, tied for fourth in a hypothetical Republican presidential primary in Louisiana. When PPP tested him against Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical general election matchup, the former secretary of state claimed a 7-point lead among all Louisiana voters.
Is it because he’s brown?
Not saying I love the former exorcist, but surely there’s a lot worse Republicans out there.
Marsala
Jindal tried to end the state income tax and raise the state sales tax, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Even red state governors can’t get away with that, apparently.
Hunter Gathers
He tried to cut taxes on the rich while raising them on everybody else and his backpack voucher program has pissed a whole lot of people off. That and the whole personality of a couch covered in platypus piss thing.
dan
Not conservative enough.
Liberty60
28% of people think he’s doing a great job?
What’s wrong with that 1%?
We know what’s wrong with the other 27%.
KXB
If he kept his egghead bonafides, he might have a better approval rating. But, the Rhodes Scholar, former McKinsey consultant thought that he could play the backwoodsman act with credibility.
Hal
Still can’t believe this dim bulb was a Rhodes Scholar.
beltane
@Liberty60: The extra 1% could be due to a rounding issue.
Southern Beale
He’s less popular than Scott Walker? No way.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jindal’s at 28%, McDonnell may be on his way to the ol’ gray bar hotel. Seems like giving the response to Obama’s SOTU (especially when billed as the next Rising Star!) is bad luck.
Also, too, Scott’s at I think about Jindal’s numbers, I saw yesterday Kasich’s numbers are sinking. LePage is becoming an embarrassment to the Maine GOP. Seems like Walker, the most perniciously effective of Tea Bagger Wave governors in the bluest tinged of purple states Obama carried is the strongest of the lot.
Ted & Hellen
Of course it’s because he’s brown.
There could be no other explanation.
max
Not saying I love the former exorcist, but surely there’s a lot worse Republicans out there.
Not really. Policywise he seems to be to the right of Rick Perry. And about as crooked, although it’s hard to say if he’s a little bit more crooked or a little bit less, but crooked he is.
max
[‘I’m sure being brown don’t help though.’]
Southern Beale
I have to watch this DoJ video explaining Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for my new job and the streaming is so awful it’s damn near unwatchable.
I blame Obama.
Chris
Heh, I remember when a couple of my Republican friends were squeeing that “oooh, he’s gonna be our Obama!”
I suspect that’s at least part of it. Even if Republicans like their tokens, their tolerance threshold for them is much lower than it would be for a white guy. Thus, the number of people who feel honorbound to defend his record to the death because Party First is lower than it would be for most of of those other governors.
RaflW
“Is it because he’s brown?”
Hmm. He’s an idiot, he tried to ram thru reforms even fellow Repubs didn’t want, he looked like Kenneth the paige on his one big TeeVee debut. He is more ambitious than talented.
In short, he’s an average GOP poll.
So maybe the immigrant heritage/skin tone matters? If he was named Smith and was white, he’d still be an idiot and a hack, but maybe less disliked.
Keith P.
A greater percentage (29% vs 28%) there also believe that Obama was more reponsible for the Katrina response than Bush was, if you can believe that.
Jake Nelson
I think it’s the “been running for President for a while now” thing. People hate when their governors care more about their national standing than doing their job.
schrodinger's cat
These GOP tokens piss me off more then the regular variety, because I think they should know better. Especially supposedly intelligent ones like Jindal. W
raven
Howdy Doody lookin motherfucker.
schrodinger's cat
@RaflW: What are the popularity ratings of other GOP governors, the skinny bald Scott guy in Florida and the other Scott in Wisconsin for example are they doing better than Jindal?
Mark B.
Jindal is pretty authentically fake, Bobby isn’t even his real name. Of course, that shouldn’t be any impediment with Louisiana voters, after all they re-elected Vitter after it became known that he hired prostitutes to dress him up in diapers. And a poll just came out that shows that it’s quite common for Louisianaians to believe that President Obama was responsible for the poor federal response to Katrina. (h/t to Talking Points Memo). Face it, the voters in Louisiana stand in awe of the intellectual capacity of the average illiterate hillbilly. Boxes of rocks have filed defamation lawsuits against getting compared to them. And I say this as someone who has a family lineage in the fair state of Louisiana, and I spent a fair portion of my childhood in Baton Rouge and Shreveport, which are among the most advanced enclaves there.
It must be because he’s brown. That’s the ticket.
The Ancient Randonneur
I miss the good old days of Louisiana politics! Any chance Edwin Edwards will make another comeback? At least he was funny.
Mark B.
@schrodinger’s cat: Both Scott guys are white. They can’t possibly fall below 27%.
Barry
@Keith P.: “A greater percentage (29% vs 28%) there also believe that Obama was more reponsible for the Katrina response than Bush was, if you can believe that. ”
Let’s just part those people out for their organs………
schrodinger's cat
@Mark B.: Jindal is at 28% right now, so even he has not yet fallen below the magic threshold of 27%.
Jindal may be Piyush but at least he is not Muslin.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: The those fucking idiots know the difference.
Mark B.
@Barry: No, no, no, it’s plausible. When he was using the time machine to place fake birth announcements in the Honolulu papers, he took a side trip on the way back to get George W. Bush and Brownie drunk and mess up the incredible response plan they had all ready to go.
pseudonymous in nc
PPP doesn’t do regular governor polling: Prick Scott was 33/57 in March, and there isn’t a recent one for Koch Wanker.
IowaOldLady
@Keith P.: You really can’t fix that level of stupid. You just have to work around those people.
raven
@IowaOldLady: I don’t want to work anywhere near them!
PeakVT
surely there’s a lot worse Republicans out there.
Maybe, but he’s managed to disappoint/piss off the base more than other governors. That’s the real difference, not his ethnicity.
schrodinger's cat
How popular is Nikki Haley?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: Per TPM, Rick Scott’s at 40% approval and trails Crist by 10 (no date on the poll, just says ‘most recent’). They list Walker at 48% approval, Kasich’s at 42/47 approve disapprove. That buffoon in PA is 38/47 approve/disapprove
JPL
@raven: After reading your comment, the image that formed in my mind was Jindal standing next to Christi during a repub debate.
Mark B.
@PeakVT: I think he gets an extra short leash because of his ethnicity. If you’re white and spout the right platitudes, you can screw the sheep all day long and stay popular. Relatively.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: Laurel and Hardy?
raven
@JPL: Just like Edgar Bergen!
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: Yup.
Roger Moore
@Liberty60:
Statistical noise.
mai naem
@schrodinger’s cat: Thing is Nikki Haley looks like a white girl. Bobby Jindal looks like a black man. And his name sounds passably/possibly black. Makes a difference in the mind of Gooper.
catclub
@Southern Beale: Walker got re-elected. You and I may not like him, but he pulls the right GOP heartstrings. As Pierce says, “Don’t go to sleep on Walker.”
raven
@JPL: You know about Oliver’s Georgia roots?
prufrock
@Hal:
Still can’t believe this dim bulb was a Rhodes Scholar.
I’m sure Jindal has a lot of raw intellegence. However, his beliefs and his need to play to the teabaggers have rendered him functionally stupid. As a software engineer who works for a defense contractor, I see this all the time. I’ve worked with enough clowns that I sometimes have to check to see if my paychecks aren’t signed by the Ringling Brothers.
Ben Grimm
Walker didn’t get re-elected, he just didn’t get recalled.
Mark B.
@schrodinger’s cat: Slowly I turned, step by step.
raven
@Mark B.: NIAGRA FALLS! (I didn’t click)
Michael G
Most modern racists aren’t overtly racist. And they aren’t even consciously covert racists. But they’ll immediately assume the worst for some people and give a ton of slack to others, and you can guess what line determines how they go. They don’t even know they are doing it.
pluege
clearly Jindal, the rising republican star is not conservative enough for the loony republican base.
(The corporate media narrative for falling/failing republicans is always that they’re not conservative enough for the base. Never the truth, that the republican base is composed of crazy insane anti-reality loons in desperate need of professional psychiatric treatment. Had the corporate media treated the republican base with the appropriate of disdain that they deserve [huge amount], its unlikely they would have succeeded in taking over the republican party and wrecking the country. )
JPL
@raven: That was quite interesting. I forgot how long ago he died.
lamh36
I think it’s a little bit of him being POC and the fact that he’s trying to enact a conserv govt policies that, and this is no surprise to anyone with a brain, are both unpopular and aren’t working. It’s one thing for a good old boy to do it, cause of course he has the white folks well being at heart. Its another for some dark “one of those people” to do the same.
raven
@JPL: Did you see Heyward get hit in the face?
http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/baseball/heyward-leaves-after-hit-by-pitch/nZYKC/
raven
@lamh36: Talking about the “Party of Stupid” added to that!
PeakVT
@Mark B.: Maybe, but I don’t recall any other Repuke governor saying that the Repuke party should stop being the stupid party.
@mai naem: Jindal does not look like a AA male. The facial features are completely different
@Ben Grimm: This is a important point. A lot of people in WI voted against the recall, not for Walker..
boatboy_srq
According to the Teahad, brown and fascist don’t belong in the same sentence; only Braun and Fascist (or Böhner and Fascist, or Cruz and Falangist, or…). So, yes, he’s too
brownethnicLibrul./snark
Mark B.
@raven: CORRECT!
gene108
@PeakVT:
Before wanting to repeal the state income tax, like around the time of the BP spill, what I read about him was he was very popular with residents of LA.
You don’t go from being popular, after a few years on the job, to being unpopular because some folks realized he’s not white.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not very popular, from what I’ve read. She rode Sara Palin’s endorsement to the governor’s mansion, but just isn’t good at her job.
Wally Ballou
Great title, Doug. Emmylou’s version or the Oak Ridge Boys’?
SiubhanDuinne
@catclub:
Not exactly. He survived a recall vote, but he’s still in his first term as governor.
(Aaaand I see Ben Grimm and PeakVT got there first. Story of my life.)
burnspbesq
@Ted & Hellen:
Now you’re doing the thing that’s worse than being an abusive asshole.
You’re boring.
Give up and go away.
jacy
Speaking as a resident, Jindal has trashed the school system (cuts in free and reduced lunch and headstart are just really hitting people the last couple of weeks — and lots of poor white people — it was all people were talking about in line at the Piggly Wiggly last week, no joke. ), trashed higher education, trashed the healthcare system, there’s a definite smell to the way he’s switched money from place to place and had it end up in the pockets of cronies. He’s gone behind the backs of legislators from his own party. Told church leaders one thing while telling business leaders another and got caught doing it. He spent a lot of time out of state pitching for Romney while things fell apart at home. And the giant sinkhole (salt dome mining from a Texas company) swallowed up a bunch of people’s homes over the course of several months and ol’ Bobby couldn’t be bothered to show his face. Every day on local radio you had people who were having to evacuate asking “Where’s the governor?”
There’s more, but basically Jindal has managed to screw everybody and not cover his tracks. Of course he’s also a goofy motherfucker with the charisma of a wet paper lunch sack, which doesn’t help.
PaulW
@Southern Beale:
My problem is, he’s less popular than Rick “F-ck Florida” Scott?! What fresh hell is this?! Dammit Floridians, you keep disappointin’ me over here…!
Mike in NC
I would trade shitstain McCrony for Jindal any day of the week.
gf120581
@Mike in NC: At the rate his poll numbers are tanking, he may pass Jindal in unpopularity soon.
I don’t know if anyone’s polled Paul LePage recently, but he’s probably got an approval rating to rival Jindel, otherwise he wouldn’t have such gruesome numbers for his reelection bid (he loses by nearly 10 in a three way race; one on one, Michaud destroys him by a 2-1 margin).
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
Yup. Crazification percentage is 27%. If one is trying to measure it with sampling, one might as well “correct” the poll result to the Platonic true figure.
Clearly somebody forgot in this case, or didn’t know the proper procedure.
Ruckus
People will vote ideology over race if given enough of the ideology. But not too much.
Once they find out what that really means, having elected a stupid shithead, they might actually realize their mistake and some of them will vote opposite the next time. This only applies when the shithead is so bad, which bobby j is, that most people are getting screwed with their pants on. Or in the case of presidents when there isn’t a war going on. Which is in my opinion is a part of the reason that darth wanted a war, to insure that bush the incompetent remained in office long enough for him to rape the economy.
dp
We hate him because he’s a useless POS who is selling off everything in the state at a bargain price to his buds, except for the parts he’s flat out destroying.
SpaceSquid
What the fuck is Quinn up to that makes Illinois wish they could swap him out for Jindal?