– by Arun Kumar
Washington (IANS): Louisiana’s Indian-American Republican Governor Bobby Jindal has acknowledged that he’s considering a 2016 run for president, and will make his decision after the November Congressional elections.
His decision would not hinge on polls or fundraising, he told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast here Tuesday.
Only 3 percent of Republican primary voters backed him in a new CNN/ORC poll of Republican presidential possibles in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in the US presidential election cycle.
The governor finished at the bottom of a field of 11 potential presidential candidates. But he says that would not be a factor, the Monitor reported.
“If I were to decide to run for 2016, it would have nothing to do with polls or fundraising,” said Jindal.
“It would simply be based on the same calculation that I made when I ran for… Congress or governor.”
He lost the Louisiana governor’s race in 2003, won a US House seat in 2004, and won the governorship in 2007 and was overwhelmingly reelected in 2011.
The determining questions, he said, were, “Do I think I can make a difference, do I think I have something unique to offer?”
“I think at this point polls are measuring name ID,” Jindal was quoted as saying by CNN.
“The first time I ran for office, I was… polling within the margin of error, which means I was at zero.”
“There’s no reason to be coy,” he said. “I am thinking, I am praying about whether I’ll run in 2016.”
Jindal, who is vice chair of the Republican Governors Association, also touted the progress that Louisiana has made while he has been governor.
Louisiana is becoming a state where more people are coming than going; boasting an economy that’s growing at twice the rate of the nation; creating more than 50,000 jobs, he said.
Jindal called President Barack Obama the worst American president since Jimmy Carter.
“Carter believed in American exceptionalism. I don’t think Obama does,” he said.
“Obama’s the most radical president, ideologically, in my lifetime. And I think he’s the most incompetent president.”
“Jimmy Carter,” he added, “was just incompetent.”