It sometimes seems as if Republicans haven’t updated their talking points in a very long while.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has endorsed Mitt Romney and is sometimes mentioned as a potential running mate, attacked President Obama on Tuesday and defended Romney’s record in business.
“President Obama hasn’t run anything before he was elected President of the United States,” Jindal said on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “Never ran a state, never a business, never ran a lemonade stand.”
This is a pretty standard criticism for any presidential candidate whose background is legislative work. Recent major-party nominees like John McCain, John Kerry, and Bob Dole — none of whom served as a governor or business leader — faced similar critiques.
But what Jindal lacks is a calendar — these criticisms of Obama’s record were made four years ago. Since early 2009, he’s been president of the United States during a time of foreign and domestic crises. Obama may not have led a state or a business before getting elected, but he led a nation after getting elected.
Like him or not, Obama’s experience with lemonade stands isn’t nearly as relevant in 2012 as his experience as Commander in Chief during a time of war. So what on earth is Jindal talking about? Perhaps Republicans are feeling a little defensive about the fact that they’re nominating the least-experienced major-party presidential nominee in more than 70 years, and if elected, Mitt Romney would be the least experienced president in 100 years. But defensive or not, the GOP should try to remember it’s running against a sitting president, not a sitting senator.
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