"...something called volcano monitoring."

At risk of this sounding like a FE thread, don't fret. There is actually an interesting question at the end of this for the forum minds that be.

Anyway, about a month ago, Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, said in his response after Obama's address to congress that:

“While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending and includes $300-million to buy new cars for the government, $8-billion for high speed rail projects, such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140-million for something called volcano monitoring. Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

As irony would have it, Mt. Redoubt, in Alaska, erupted five times today, spraying ash 15km into the air, with some of the ash falling in the suburbs around Anchorage, and causing problems at airports and oil refineries.

Withholding as much snark as I can withhold, what does this mean for Jindal?

He, from what I have gathered, has been seen as big potential Republican player during the next election, someone who could help unify the party quite a bit.

How does something like this effect someone's potential to run for political office? Is this a recoverable gaffe? It won't be a problem for the Republican base, but that base is shrinking in favor of a more moderate center. How will this be seen by the moderates?


Edited by agentwhale007 - 24 March 2009 at 1:20am

I'd hardly call that a gaffe, just bad timing.

Given that we are already in deep debt, and congress is spending billions on bailouts and new programs, being critical of something as obscure (from a budget point of view) as volcano monitoring isn't out of line.  Virtually all volcanically active regions are well researched by various Universities and private organizations, and contingency plans exist in many regions already.  Mind you I'm just going off what I'm aware of; policies may have changed.

EDIT:

Oh, and, I love these threads

durrr hurr



Edited by Darur - 24 March 2009 at 1:30am

Darur wrote: I'd hardly call that a gaffe, just bad timing.

Oh, it is extraordinarily bad timing. Especially for a Governor who had his state near-destroyed by a national disaster.

And, as per the rest of your quote, I'm not really sure the validity of government funded volcanic monitoring is the question here.

I am trying to figure out what average voters down the road will think. They are a weird group to figure out sometimes.

agentwhale007 wrote: Oh, it is extraordinarily bad timing. Especially for a Governor who had his state near-destroyed by a national disaster. And, as per the rest of your quote, I'm not really sure the validity of government funded volcanic monitoring is the question here. I am trying to figure out what average voters down the road will think. They are a weird group to figure out sometimes.

Ahh, sorry, I missed your point.

I'd like to think your average voter would recognize that volcanic eruptions (excluding Yellowstone) pose a relatively tiny threat to most American citizens, and that Jindal was still well within reason arguing that volcanic monitoring is not a top-priority expense for congress at present. 

That being said, observing the amount of flak the President is getting for the silliest of issues, and the huge amount of distortion and mud-slinging going about in the opinion sections of our media, I can easily see this being blown out of proportion.

 

I think the general public has more things to worry about than a liberals view that we should be watching mother earths volcanos at the tune of 140,000,000 dollars.

agentwhale007 wrote: FreeEnterprise wrote: Big whoop, the volcano, that everyone said was going to erupt, did... And that discredits jindal how?   Possibly because the reason that everyone said it was going to erupt was because of volcano monitoring systems?

or replace the ones that just got erupted.  or maintain the ones we have.  

Mostly bad timing, I figure. Palin makes jokes about the silliness of fruit fly research, now THAT was a major gaffe (or maybe not, given her target audience). This will fade away, I think.

A little off, but I think they should really invest a bit of money in bioterrorism awareness and prevention. If smallpox ever came back then it would be devastating to the U.S. population. The country's stockpile is only about 15 million vaccines, most of which are from the 70's and now are pretty much useless, and even if they were usable, 15 million is not nearly enough to vaccinate everyone.
Not to mention our healthcare system sucks. When another mass attack (or outbreak) on U.S. soil happens, our hospitals will not even begin to be able to treat that many people. Hospitals have a hard enough time dealing with 100 people from a plane crash, let alone, 100,000 from an anthrax or other bio-attack. This scares me alot because a bioterrorist attack would be so incredibly easy to do if you had the resources.


Edited by Rofl_Mao - 24 March 2009 at 4:39pm

Silly choopie, that plane is Russian. No wonder its dirty, old, ugly, and doesn't work.