Stimulus as GOP Hopefuls' Iraq

Republican gubernatorial presidential wannabes are facing a dilemma over the Obama stimulus similar to the one that led Senate Democratic hopefuls into voting for George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2001.

Just as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards et al feared retaliation at the polls in 2004 for being soft on terrorism, we now have Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford arguing against government spending in their states during a crashing economy to appease the Republican conservative base for their 2012 primary runs.

On Meet the Press, Gov. Jindal bloviated over his refusal to accept $100 million for unemployment compensation in an estimated $4 billion of aid for Louisiana: “Now is the time, and it’s a great opportunity for Republican governors and other leaders to offer conservative-based solutions to the problems.”

He was followed by Charlie Crist of Florida, whose ambitions reach no higher than the Senate in 2010, saying, “There is a national leader, his name is President Obama...I think we do need to be bipartisan. We need to be, in fact, nonpartisan.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose state is drowning in red ink and is ineligible by birth for running for the White House, is also more philosophical. “Even though it is against your principles or philosophy,” he notes that officeholders should be doing “what the people want you to do rather than getting stuck in your ideology.”

Voting for Iraq left a lot of Democrats scrambling to explain themselves to voters later on. No matter how the stimulus turns out for the economy, some of their Republican counterparts now may have trouble persuading even their base why it was a good idea to open their umbrellas in a financial drought when it was raining federal money.

Huckabee or Jindal: Googling McCain's VP

"You know, basically it's a Google," the Republican candidate told a fund-raising luncheon this week when asked how the running-mate selection process was going. "What you can find out now on the Internet--it's remarkable."

McCain was joking, of course, but in the light of his age issue and as a veteran of the 2000 campaign in which Dick Cheney chose himself, he knows the Republican VP candidate is no laughing matter.

After auditions of Mitt Romney and Governors Charlie Charlie Crist of Florida and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana at a Memorial Day barbecue, rumors are running toward Mike Huckabee, who caught fire with some conservatives during the primaries but put off others with his Second Commandment populism.

But, prodded by Rush Limbaugh, true believers are salivating over the 37-year-old Louisiana governor.

"Bobby Jindal is a great American," Grover Norquist burbles. "He is great on guns, great on taxes, a Roman Catholic, a Southerner and an Indian-American. Bobby Jindal would be great for the GOP and perfect for McCain."

The 71-year-old McCain's choice of Jindal would inevitably invite comparisons with the selection in 1988 by George H. W. Bush of Dan Quayle, then 41, who turned out to be an embarrassing VP who couldn't spell "potato."

But Jindal is a former Rhodes scholar who went on to work for McKinsey advising Fortune 500 companies. He is reliably pro-life, voted in Congress to make the Patriot Act permanent and advocates teaching "intelligent design" in public schools.

In 1988, McCain opined about Quayle, "I can't believe a guy that handsome wouldn't have some impact." Soon now, we'll know what kind of guy McCain thinks would have impact on his chances for the White House.