Gov. Bobby Jindal appears uninterested in playing up his ethnic diversity as he considers a presidential bid.
The Louisiana Republican’s Indian heritage could be a key political strength in the GOP’s 2016 White House primary. The Republican Party is eager to diversify as it grapples with how to appeal to a diverse national electorate that’s increasingly less white and more ethnically diverse. Courting rising ethnic demographics was a major part of President Obama’s two presidential victories, results still fresh in the minds of GOP strategists as the next presidential race approaches.
But in an interview with reporters during a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor on Monday, Jindal rejected the premise that Americans should be defined by race — for any reason, politics included.
“You mean I’m not white? I’m shocked at this revelation,” Jindal, 43, said sarcastically upon being asked about a portrait that reportedly made him appear Caucasian. “I will give you permission in every picture you run of me, every story you run about me, you have my permission to put a disclaimer, to put a note that, I’m not white.”
“I think this whole thing is silly. I think the left is obsessed with race. I think that the reality is, one of the dumbest ways we divide people is by skin color,” Jindal continued. “We’re all Americans, and one of the great things — one of the great aspects of our country is that we’ve been a melting pot, it shouldn’t matter whether you came here five minutes ago or 100 years ago, we’re all Americans and that’s the important thing.”
Jindal’s parents emigrated to the United States from India in the early 1970s, some months before the second-term governor was born. Jindal, a likely 2016 candidate, said he would make a final decision on whether to run sometime in the next few months.
“My wife and I continue to think about it,” he said. “Who is the next president is not as important and what the next president does. We face serious challenges. I think this is an election that will be a serious election, not just about who can tell the best jokes or deliver the best speech.”
The Louisianan is not the only Republican who would bring diversity to the 2016 field.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s parents came to the U.S. from Cuba; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father also fled Fidel Castro’s authoritarian regime. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, an African American, is another likely candidate, as is businesswoman and 2010 California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina.
