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June 13th, 2012 12:42 pm
More Support for Kyl… or Jindal

Last week Troy had this excellent column on why Jon Kyl would be an excellent choice for Mitt Romney’s running mate. He was right. I’ve been a big Kyl fan for years, and wrote about him just a few weeks ago. Today I go all the way in the direction I was hinting at in that column, namely joining Troy in his suggestion that Kyl would be a great choice for veep. In this case, I make him choice 1b, with Bobby Jindal of Louisiana as 1a. I also linked to Troy’s piece within mine; do read his solid reasoning, please, as well as mine.

Here’s part of my case for Kyl:

Kyl also adds particular heft where Romney has no real record, namely foreign and defense policy. From Kyl’s long service on the Judiciary Committee, he also is well equipped to carry the fight to Obama on the subject of Eric Holder’s corrupt Justice Department, and also to parry attacks on the Supreme Court that Obama is expected to make if the court throws out all or part of Obamacare. With Romney having shown a bit of ineptness in describing legal issues and explaining conservative jurisprudence, Kyl’s abilities here could be tremendously important.

Finally, while few people think Republicans are seriously at risk of losing Arizona, Kyl does perhaps, at the very margins, offer an overlooked geographical advantage. In a very close election, many observers are starting to think the entire outcome could depend on a razor-thin difference, one way or another, not in Ohio but in Iowa. Well, Kyl grew up in Iowa, and his father actually was a U.S. congressman from there.

And here’s part of my case for Jindal:

Some will gripe that Jindal adds no geographical advantage to the ticket — and they are right. But that consideration pales in comparison with what he will add in one particular area. It is almost certain that, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on Obamacare, the question of “what would Republicans do to replace it” will dominate campaign coverage throughout the summer and perhaps all the way until Election Day. Romney himself, as the author of Romneycare and a once-avid advocate of an individual insurance mandate, is poorly equipped to handle this question. No high-ranking elected official in the country, however, can match Jindal for his expert knowledge on health-care policy, nor can anybody else match Jindal’s ability to explain positive, conservative alternatives to the Left’s state-controlled systems. In short, he takes a major Romney weakness and turns it into a strength, on an issue that really could sway the whole election.

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