Jindal's Kenneth problem

From Politico by Andy Barr

Bobby Jindal has a wunderkind resume: a Rhodes Scholar appointed assistant secretary of Health and Human Services at age 29, elected to the U.S. House at 33 and governor of Louisiana at 36. Increasingly, though, he’s being likened to Kenneth, the dweeby page on “30 Rock.” The politically devastating comparisons started popping right up after Jindal delivered the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s address a joint session of Congress. And they’ve spread like wildfire on the Internet. “Close your eyes and think of Kenneth from ‘30 Rock.’ I can barely count the number of e-mails making that observation,” Andrew Sullivan wrote on his blog minutes after Jindal’s speech. The comparison was also made that night by Talking Points Memo, The Huffington Post and Gawker. Now the wunderkind governor, who’s often mentioned as a GOP presidential prospect, is struggling to overcome his association with this generation's version of Gomer Pyle. And his predicament is organic, as opposed to the biting parodies of Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.” Several Facebook groups dedicated to the comparison have sprung up. The latest, “Bobby Jindal is Kenneth the Page,” had more than 20,000 members on Friday. In comparison, nearly 34,000 people list themselves as fans of Jindal on the social networking site. Nine YouTube videos splicing the governor’s speech with clips of Kenneth the Page have been viewed by at least 10,000 people and the video of the Kenneth responding to Jindal on “Late Night” in which he calls Jindal a “goober” was featured prominently on The Huffington Post and other sites. “These parodies take hold very, very quickly,” said Michael W. Robinson, a senior vice president at Levick Strategic Communications and former communications director for the Justice Department in the last Bush administration. “If [Jindal] doesn’t address this quickly the caricature will become the character.” In Louisiana, the governor’s communications director sought to play down the comparisons. “Being compared to Kenneth the Page is a whole lot better than what past Louisiana governors have been compared to,” Melissa Sellers said. “Kenneth sounds like Clark Gable.” The content of Jindal’s speech was not the major issue, though it was also panned by some. It was his appearance and awkward delivery from the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge. “The Internet is abuzz with comparisons of Jindal to ‘Kenneth the Page,’ the naive, irretrievably nerdy bumpkin from the NBC comedy ‘30 Rock,’” wrote Mary Katherine Ham on the Weekly Standard’s blog. “The comparison is unfortunate for several reasons, not least of all because it signals the undue influence of Tina Fey on national politics may continue unabated. It's also catchy, and was not terribly unfair after last night's speech,” she said. “But on any other day of his career, it would have been a total mischaracterization of his skills, which are considerable.” Appearing on CNN amid all the speech fuss, Jindal told Larry King that he hoped people would “look at the content of the speech, not just the delivery.” “You know, for years, I've been told I speak too quickly,” Jindal said. “Now, I'm told I speak too slowly.”

Jindal is certainly not the first politician to be caught up in parody. On “Saturday Night Live,” Dana Carvey’s impressions of George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot became entrenched in their public persona, as did Chevy Chase’s parody of Gerald Ford and Will Ferrell’s impression of George W. Bush. “Gerald Ford played football at Michigan, but everyone remembers the Chevy Chase character,” Robinson said. While these past political parodies were most often dismissed as distractions, getting known as “that politician that reminds me of Kenneth” may prove to be problematically for Jindal. The governor may be hot talk in the insider political circles, but he’s not yet a household name in Iowa or New Hampshire. According to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 57 percent of Americans either have never heard of Jindal or had no opinion about him. Only 15 percent of the 1,007 surveyed people said they held a favorable view of him. “Often times for candidates, the best things they can do for themselves is to let their image grow positively in an organic way, and that’s what Bobby Jindal had. But some overreach and try to get in the spotlight with some big speech,” said Ben Porritt, a public relations consultant who was as a spokesman on the McCain-Palin campaign. “Political figures try to do too much to build an image that they think people want, and it’s not always necessary,” Porritt said. Already, Jindal’s public image may have been shaped outside of his control, a precarious situation for any politician. “Those kinds of popular conceptions grab hold,” Robinson said. “People don’t have time to think ‘What did he do on health care?’ It’s easier to think ‘Oh, that’s the guy who reminds me of blank.’” Jindal, though, still has plenty of time to recoup. “Political figures have an ability to really remake their image over a long or short period of time,” Porritt said. “Two decades ago, Joe Biden was the laughing stock of presidential politics. and now he is vice president.” In 1992, Porritt noted, Bill Clinton, looking to polish his image as a Democratic presidential candidate, played the saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s show. And just last year, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was able to counter Tina Fey’s damaging parody by appearing with Fey on “Saturday Night Live.” She was widely applauded for it and was able to ease some of the most harmful public sentiments about her candidacy. Jindal has not yet hit the late-night circuit, but Robinson suggested he might consider it. “He’s gotta move this off the agenda so people can remember that he was a Rhodes scholar and one of the youngest members of Congress,” Robinson said. “It’s not like this is some obscure Showtime show, we’re talking about a major primetime show.” “He needs to find a high-profile venue to address this, and it’s got to be done quickly,” Robinson added. “If you let it lay, then people’s impressions will harden.”