With those words, Louisiana Governor BobbyJindalhas ended his quest for the White House, a campaign that began with a rally in Kenner on June24th.
“My name is Bobby Jindal,” he declared then, to cheers from the crowd. “I am governor of the great state of Louisiana, and I am running for President of the greatest country in the world—the United States of America!”
Last evening, Jindal’s announcement was much quieter, given during a one-on-one with Bret Baier on Fox News.
“I’ve come here to announce that I am suspending my campaign for President of the United States,” said an apparently still cheerful Jindal.
Our governor, who has spent the majority of the past five months in Iowa, will be back in Baton Rouge this morning, with a press conference scheduled at the Governor’s Mansion at 11:30.
It’s not as though he doesn’t have some pressing business here at home. The Revenue Estimating Conference acknowledged a current budget shortfall of $370-million on Monday, causing Senate President John Alario to remark, “That’s just a big shock, I think, to all of us.”
Jindal has to offer a plan to balance the state books by Friday morning, when the Joint Budget Committee meets.
There’s the election of his successor on Saturday, and then the process of handing over the reins of power by inauguration day, January 11th.
And after that? Jindal told Fox News, “I’m going to back to a think tank – one of the things I’m going to be doing – I’m going to go back to a think tank called America Next that I set up a few years ago to develop these policies.”
He did have a message for his supporters.
“American has given me and my family so many blessings and opportunities. I’m not going to stop fighting for my conservative beliefs or my conservative principles. Certainly, we thought it would end differently.”
Copyright 2015 WRKF
