For Jindal, Ideology Comes First
by Stephanie Grace - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

If Gov. Bobby Jindal has said it once, he's said it a thousand times. He's not worried about building a national profile. He's not even thinking about running for president. He's got the job he wants.

Listen to Jindal's words, and that's what you hear. But take a look at his approach to this year's legislative session, and things take on a different appearance. Governors who are worried only about their current jobs don't necessarily abandon ideology, but they tend to focus more on the practical demands of keeping state government functioning, particularly during an acute economic downturn.

When it comes to taxes, though, Jindal is letting ideology trump pragmatism. He's playing to the type of Republican purists who dominate the presidential primary process. But the governor isn't just saying no to tax increases. He's opposing anything that could be loosely interpreted as a tax increase -- or, say, defined as such in the loaded language of political campaigns, and thus used to question Jindal's conservative bona fides. He's doing it even when it means he has to break with his own legislative allies, and that's telling..

Despite a veto threat from Jindal, the Senate voted 29-9 for Democratic state Sen. Lydia Jackson's bill to delay the last step of a phased-in income tax cut -- specifically the full reinstatement of deductions for things like home mortgages and charitable contributions.

This is the stuff of naked partisan politics, straight out of the culture of permanent campaigns. But it didn't have to be. If he wanted to, Jindal, the state's top Republican, could depoliticize the tone. He could make the case that Louisiana can't afford to starve higher education and risk any prospect of building a job-rich, knowledge-based economy.

Jindal's not saying any of those things, although he does keep insisting that he has the job he wants. His actions suggest otherwise.