Arizona: Bobby Jindal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Remember how, during his big prime-time speech last month, Lousiana's Republican governor Bobby Jindal, in addition to making stuff up about what he did during Hurricane Katrina, also found time to mock the Obama administration for "wasteful...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

One of my favorite economics bloggers, Jon Perr over at Crooks and Liars blog, posted this provocative report:

In just their latest posturing for the 2012 Republican presidential race, governors Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Mark Sanford (R-SC) joined Texas' Rick Perry, Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal in announcing they would reject some of the federal stimulus funds allocated to their states. But as the steady one-way flow of tax dollars and earmarks spreading the wealth from Washington to their states shows, de facto red state socialism is alive and well.

As a 2007 analysis (above) of federal spending per tax dollar received by state shows, the reddest states generally reaped the most green.

Despite earlier denials, Bobby Jindal is now being talked about as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. They are even calling him the “Republican Obama.” I’m wondering though if the sort of campaign waged against Barack Obama will make it hard for Jindal to sell himself to the Republican base.

I’m thinking of two lines of attack on Obama: one was that Obama was some sort of effete Ivy Leaguer, a pointy headed intellectual out of touch with Joe Six-Pack. Well, guess what? Jindal is a graduate of Brown and a Rhodes Scholar who has written articles for scholarly journals.

More important though was the not-quite-official campaign questioning whether or not Obama was a “true American.