Bobby Jindal in 2012

Bobby Jindal is the new face of the Republican Party for the upcoming presidential election, and, regardless as to whether he makes the run or not, he will certainly play a part in the campaign.
Jindal, whose real name is Piyush Jindal (he adopted the name Bobby after The Brady Bunch in grade school), is the son of Indian immigrant parents and the current governor of Louisiana.  He is widely liked throughout the country, and is particularly popular within his own state.  He came to prominence on the national stage when he was put on the short list for possible VP candidates for John McCain, and again later as the Republican’s rebuttal speaker after Barack Obama’s 2009 State of the Union Address.
As far as Republicans go, he’s got decent credentials.  He was born Hindu but converted to Catholicism as a teen, and he was a brilliant student in school.  He obtained his undergraduate degree by the age of 20 and went on to study health policy at Oxford.  In the mid-90’s, through connections he had made, he was appointed the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, where he turned around the bankrupt budget into a surplus.  He ran for the House of Representatives in 2004, won, and served until 2006, when he returned to Louisiana to run for the Governorship, which he won.  His handling of the evacuation during Hurricane Gustav was sharply contrasted to the failure of the government during Hurricane Katrina, and has since been something of a wunderkind for the Republican party.
He does, however, have plenty of drawbacks.  First, his rebuttal to Obama was considered by many Republican and Democrat analysts to be a failure, as he adopted an “aw, shucks” manner of speaking that came off as disingenuous and kind of condescending.  And during the speech, he brought up Katrina a few too many times, which, though he stands in sharp contrast to, brought attention back to a major Republican failure during the Bush administration.
He doesn’t have the charisma and gravitas that Obama has, and it’s certainly a huge question mark as to whether he could hold his own against the Obama powerhouse.  He does draw some parallels to the current president, with his immigrant background and meteoric rise, but Obama has the it-factor, and Jindal might have some of it, but he hasn’t shown it much yet.
In terms of the party itself, he has bonafide pro-life credentials (he is against it in pretty much any case), he’s against same-sex marriage, he’s NRA endorsed, and he’s tough on crime.  He was also outspoken against the stimulus, though he is now using a lot of it, and has a pretty solid economic record.  He could be supported by both the Religious Right and the fiscally conservative Reagan Republicans.
In this bloggers opinion, he’s a strong candidate… for 2016.  He’s too new and too untested.  He needs foreign policy experience, and he needs some political coaching.  He’s not a Republican Obama, and his nomination may be seen as a cynical ploy to garner minority votes.  He could very easily be named the 2012 VP candidate, but it’s hard to imagine him holding his own against Mitt Romney’s smoothness or Sarah Palin’s attack-dog ferocity in the 2012 Republican Primary debates.  Keep your eye on him, but not for the Presidential bid.  My pick is Romney/Jindal 2012.