Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Louisiana has cornfields too

I wasn't suprised when Bobby Jindal announced that he planned to attend a fundraising event in Iowa later this month.
After all, the election is over and the new one - 2012 - is beginning (these things get longer and longer).
I heard that he said on Tuesday that he "politely declined" the opportunity to be on John McCain's short list for the vice presidency.
No surprise there - 2008 was not a Republican year and everyone knew it. Jindal, who is proving to be a consummate politician, knew that he didn't need to be part of a losing team.
I wasn't surprised that his planned visit came two days after Mike Huckabee just happened to be there.
No, what puzzled me was his reason for going. "They’ve got cornfields. I’ve never been to Iowa before."
Cornfields, huh? We have cornfields in Louisiana; I'm sure Jindal has seen them on his travels. I spent some time in the midwest and I can tell you that one cornfield is hardly distinguishable from another, in other words, a Louisiana cornfield looks just like an Iowa cornfield.
No, there had to be a political connection. Perhaps some special communion between the candidate and the cornfield lends itself to discernment and understanding of one's role in the universe.
Then I found the answer, just as I suspected. Talking to the corn has a precedent.
If it worked for him, perhaps it can work for Bobby too.

4 comments:

June Butler said...

Jim, what a wonderful post. When I read the words below, I burst out laughing.

I spent some time in the midwest and I can tell you that one cornfield is hardly distinguishable from another, in other words, a Louisiana cornfield looks just like an Iowa cornfield.

I'd have to agree. One cornfield looks pretty much like another. However, when Grandpère and I travel by car, he is endlessly fascinated by every cornfield that we pass and every other kind of planted field we happen to roll by. The sugarcane fields, still catch his eye, and we are surrounded by them here in southeast Louisiana.

I believe that GP's attraction to the fields is quite different from Jindal's or Obama's. I think that those two have ulterior motives. No pure love of cornfields in either of them.

Jim said...

Jindal's remark that 'they have cornfields' struck me as really odd. I would venture to suggest that every state, at least in the lower 48, has cornfields.
Politicians are such strange creatures.

June Butler said...

Did you see Frank Rich's column in the NYT today? Our boy gets a couple of mentions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16rich.html?hp

Lindsay said...

First off, the difference between a Louisiana cornfield and an Iowa cornfield is that a Louisiana cornfield is most likely a Sugarcane field.