will be central. they need to be. there s a big strain of southern pop list in the conservativism party. jindal is a harvard educated policy wonk on things like health care reform. he s an interesting marriage. he s not that different in that respect in this mix of southern elite schooling and populist instincts to bill clinton back when he brought his project of southern populist moderation to the democratic project back in 1989, 1990, 1991. so there s a road map here, and bobby jindal i think is the first one to jump on it, but he won t be the last. but the thing is though howard, go ahead. the thing is that jindal is sticking with the cultural conservatism. he s a brown educated guy with a rhodes scholarship, but he s for teaching creationism in the schools. a big part of the tea party thing has been resistance to opening the doors on
week. so the party that spent much of the campaign telling us that evolution is a lie, global warming a hoax, tax cuts pay for themselves, and pollsters were conspiring against the winning romney campaign is now apparently making an effort to join the reality-based community. the latest, louisiana governor bobby jindal who told politico it s time for republicans to, quote, stop being the stupid party. sounds promising until you remember he signed into law a measure that allows for teaching creationism in public schools. with me are two msnbc political hot shots. howard fineman is the huffington post boss, and john heilemann with new york magazine. both great guys and brilliant. let me ask you about this republican party. as someone once said in the communist world as things were changing in budapest, the road to damascus is very crowded these days. there are a lot of, what do you call them, a lot of converts out there. i was thinking, howard, in a nonreligious, in a secular sense,
party of 1%. quote, we ve got to make sure that we re not the party of big business, big banks, big wall street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything. we cannot be. we must not be the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys. now, that s a good southern populist statement by a southern conservative bobby jindal, john heilemann, but you will notice he doesn t give an inch on the cultural stuff like we ve got to teach creationism in our public schools. his idea of compromise, stay out there on the far right on the cultural stuff, i m sure abortion rights and same-sex, but move in on the rich guy stuff. well, yeah. look, i mean, i m not sure we ve got yet a comprehensive statement from bobby jindal about what he thinks modernization and reform of the republican party would look like. chris, you put your finger right on the button. there is going to be a place in the republican party for an outsider who is going to be not washington figures, particular
will give him on cutting entitlement. here is afl-cio president richard trumka immediately after the meeting. we re very, very committed to making sure that the middle class and workers don t end up paying the tab for a party that we didn t get to go to. and the president is committed to that as well. are we going to collectively stand up and make sure that workers get a fair shake in all of this? absolutely we are. do we believe that the president is committed to that same thing? absolutely we do. but in a prior interview with salon, trumka took a harder line saying, quote, if any bipartisan deal includes cuts in social security, medicare, or medicaid or extends the bush cuts for the top 2%, we will oppose it. whenever something is good for workers, we ll support it. if it s bad for workers, it doesn t matter who proposes it, we won t be on board. we won t be taken for granted. it doesn t sound as if he s giving the president much room at all to negotiate.
i think that s kind of not smart or dopey thinking. what do you think? how can you claim to be a reformist and talk about creationism? i m not sure that bobby jindal is talking about creationism very much in the statements he made to politico. he hasn t stopped. he hasn t stopped yet. again, this is very early days. i m not trying to make excuses for him. i think that there s a in any way. i m pro-science, i think we need to be credible reform party, you should embrace climate change and propose solutions to them. there s no question about that. but, you know, i think there is going to be this is where some of the cleavages will come among various strains of reformism. howard pointed to one, the question of immigration. some like jeb bush will be on the relatively liberal side of creationism. maybe bobby jindal will be on creationism. because he himself is minority, he almost visually carries an inclusiveness that some of the more white, standard brand caucasian republicans d