Jindal Just Plain Crap at Governing

Jeffrey, over at Library Chronicles (via YRHT), has a great post on Jindal’s travails. He sums them up thus:

The funny part is that Governor PBJ and his staff are just plain crappy at governing. It’s harder to play the empty promise game from the Governor’s office than it is from the campaign trail. That’s what PBJ’s Dragonslayers are finding out.

Specifically, they’re learning it’s not a good idea to antagonize both sides of the same issue at the same time. In this case, they’re busy lying to voters in order to curry favor with the Legislature. But at the same time that they’re dealing in the back room over this mutual pay raise bill, they’re also letting their panic over the public criticism drive them into posturing intimidation of their partners anyway.

He also highlights this intriguing comparison with the Blanco administration from the Times-Picayune:

Blanco also faced pay raise issues during her first few months in office. The chairmen of the House and Senate financial committees approved a pay increase proposal for themselves without a debate on the issue, but Blanco persuaded them to abandon the idea.

Several other statewide elected officials pressed for a large pay raise for themselves and the governor, but Blanco stamped out the initiative and said they should not get a raise until public teacher pay was brought up to the Southern regional average. After teachers got that raise last year, Blanco allowed a pay raise for the next governor, who turned out to be Jindal.

“She drew the line in the sand very early on,” (former Blanco staffer Bob) Mann said. “It looks like Jindal let the train get away from him. Either he got pushed around or wasn’t paying attention.”