UCLA professor Mark A.R. Kleiman had a really good post the other day about Republicans in Louisiana taking great pride in their support for Bobby Jindal.
Keep in mind, the Republicans’ recent history in Louisiana is pretty disgraceful. It was just 12 years ago that the GOP nominated former KKK leader David Duke to be the party’s gubernatorial nominee. Indeed, as exit polls showed, a majority of the state’s white male voters backed Duke in the race.
Now, however, Louisiana’s GOP has nominated Jindal, whose family immigrated from India. While the typical Republican gathering in the state features no one darker than a manila envelope, Jindal’s skin color represents a degree of diversity within the state party.
As Kleiman explained, Republicans appear ready to “tear their rotator cuffs, trying to pat themselves on the back for being sooooooo tolerant.”
They shouldn’t be quite so pleased with themselves. Despite all their talk of tolerance and respect for diversity, Bobby Jindal’s phonebanks are playing the ethnic card in reverse, reminding Louisiana voters of three central campaign talking points: “Bobby was born in Louisiana,” “Bobby is a Christian,” and “Bobby will support tax cuts.”
As The American Prospect’s Matthew Yglesias put it, “Indian-Americans are welcome in the Republican big tent as long as they’re native-born citizens who are Christian. How open-minded.”
The point isn’t that the campaign talking points are incorrect. Jindal is a native Louisianan who loves tax cuts and who converted from Hinduism in college, changing his first name from Piyush to Bobby. But it is curious that Jindal’s campaign is going out of its way to emphasize his Christian beliefs.
“If Bobby were not a Christian — if instead he had remained faithful to the religion of Gandhi and Tagore — would that make him less qualified to be the Governor of Louisiana?” Kleiman asks. “Does he think it appropriate to treat his Hindu relatives as second-class citizens, by stressing his acquired religion as if it were relevant to the office he seeks?”
For that matter, would the state’s Republican voters be so anxious to embrace Jindal if he had stayed a Hindu? Would the campaign still want the candidate’s faith tradition to be one of his three central talking points had he not converted?