Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Althouse

Legal Commentary

: Althouse

Crist, Jindal, Romney.

Looks like McCain wants a governor for VP. Which one?

What do you think of Bobby Jindal?

Mr. Jindal, who was born in Baton Rouge, La., to a family that had just arrived there from the Punjab area of India, took office as Louisiana?s governor in January after serving three years in the House of Representatives. Mr. Jindal, who was born a Hindu but became a Roman Catholic as a teenager, campaigned for governor as a social conservative, opposing human embryonic stem cell research and abortion in any form and favoring teaching ?intelligent design? in schools as an alternative to evolution.

But Mr. Jindal also has a reputation as a policy wonk, like the Clintons, with a specialty in health care issues. After graduating in 1991 from Brown University, where he majored in biology and public policy, and attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Mr. Jindal worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company and was executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. He later served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and in the Bush administration as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for planning and evaluation.

Sounds great. The health specialty could work very well in the mix. But Jindal is only 37! That's 5 years younger than our youngest President... but old enough ? in constitutional terms ? to be President. I see fodder for jokes about how old McCain is. Their average age ? 54 ? seems ideal for a President. Downside: It would make it impossible to argue that Obama is too young to be President.

ADDED: Jindal turns 37 on June 10th.

Full post as published by Althouse on May 22, 2008 (boomark / email).