Bobby’s Believers: Conservatives launch draft-Jindal PAC

Bob Livingston, a retired Louisiana congressman Jindal interned for during college, will serve as chairman of Believe Again; Rolfe McCollister, a politically-connected Baton Rouge businessman, is the treasurer. Brad Todd, a Washington-based Republican operative, will be the super PAC’s primary consultant.

“We are very confident that this super PAC will be well-supported,” Todd told the Washington Examiner Wednesday evening. “Republican primary voters are looking for a conservative leader who has proven he has big ideas and proven he can put those ideas into action.”

Federal law prohibits Jindal from being closely associated with Believe Again or directly coordinating with the super PAC.

However, the decision by the governor’s closest supporters to move ahead with Believe Again didn’t happen in a vacuum: They wouldn’t have moved if they didn’t think he was running. Jindal has been signaling for some time that he intends to seek the White House, and the opening of a super PAC on his behalf was necessary if he hoped to be sufficiently resourced to prevail in what is expected to be crowded, competitive GOP primary.

Jindal would be facing an uphill slog. In a CBS poll released Sunday, Jindal came in last among 13 Republican hopefuls, with just 14 percent of Republicans and 12 percent of Independents answering “Yes” when asked whether he should run. On the plus side, Jindal’s “No” percentage was lower than most of his potential competitors, and more than 60 percent in both categories answered “Don’t know enough to say,” suggesting that while Jindal faces a steep name-recognition challenge, he has room to grow his appeal.

Jindal’s PAC joins a field of political organizations launched to boost potential 2016 candidates. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, recently unveiled a super PAC and federal leadership political action committee, both named Right to Rise; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is in the process of forming a political group; and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has long since developed his leadership PAC, Reclaim America, into a political team and fundraising machine.

Unlike leadership PACs, super PACs can raise money in unlimited amounts, making them popular with political operatives looking to aid their favored candidate. In 2012, a super PAC formed by supporters of eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney raised tens of millions of dollars and helped the former Massachusetts governor survive a bruising primary campaign.

Principles behind Jindal’s super PAC have done their homework and are convinced there is a donor market for their favored potential candidate, say sources familiar with the group’s formation. Jindal is the former chairman of the Republican Governors Association, a post that connected him to the biggest GOP donors across the country. His supporters say the Louisianan’s record of achieving conservative reform in is exactly what voters, and in turn, campaign contributors, are looking for.

Jindal has been knocked for an uninspiring speaking style and lack of presidential gravitas on the stump. But his supporters believe he’s positioned to fight his way to the 2016 nomination. He’s a governor, not from Washington, and is conservative on fiscal, social and national security issues. He has also managed to thrive in Louisiana politics, hardly an environment for shrinking violets.

In a competitive race, Jindal fans believe those qualities can help him break through, ahead of the collection of senators pondering a run and in front of the Bush-Romney crowd that could come under fire for supposedly being too centrist.

“Republican voters are tired of empty rhetoric from the same old politicians,” Livingston said. “They want a full-spectrum conservative who has the courage and bandwidth to make large scale reforms. If Gov. Jindal runs, he will the kind of candidate who makes Republicans able to believe again.”

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