How About a Brewer-Jindal Ticket in 2012? By Doug Patton

July 12, 2010

The more I read about Governors Jan Brewer of Arizona and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, the more I think they would make a formidable ticket against Barack Obama and his court jester, Joe Biden, in 2012. Brewer and Jindal are pro-life, pro-family, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-free enterprise, pro-energy production and pro-legal immigration. All the qualities we need in Washington, DC, right now.

Brewer, the courageous and embattled Republican governor of Arizona, is once again being betrayed by other "leaders" in the United States, in favor of officials in Mexico.

We saw it on disgraceful display when Obama and his Democrats in Congress gave Mexican Presidente Felipe Calderon a standing ovation when he told a joint session of Congress that he Arizona's new illegal immigration law was unconstitutional. (I'm sure he's an expert on such things.)

We witnessed it again last week when the Obama Justice Department put politics ahead of good public policy by filing a lawsuit against the legislation -- not on the basis of discrimination, which critics of the law have claimed is their main objection, but rather on the premise that the enforcement of immigration laws is the province of the federal government. Never mind that the state law mirrors federal law, or that the feds won't enforce it.

Now we see the embarrassing spectacle of Gov. Brewer's fellow border-state governors failing to support her in her latest conflict with Mexican officials.

The issue is the border state governors' conference. Every year for the last 28 years, the border governors of Mexico meet with their U.S. counterparts to discuss issues of mutual concern. This year, the Mexican participants decided to boycott the meeting, which was scheduled to be held in Phoenix. So Gov. Brewer called their bluff by canceling the meeting altogether.

Unfortunately, Brewer's fellow governors are lining up against her decision by calling for the conference to be held in one of their states. Of course, Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico is no surprise. Neither is RINO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenkennedy of the morally and fiscally bankrupt state of Caleefornia. As of this writing, Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry has said that to reschedule the meeting, which was due to be held in September, "probably is not feasible."

Obviously, Jan Brewer stands with the American people while other cowardly officials stand with the criminals who continue daily to pour across our porous border.

Meanwhile, some 1,500 miles to the east, another gutsy GOP governor is waging a valiant battle against the forces of political correctness and stupidity. Since taking office in late 2007, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal has demonstrated what Barack Obama has never learned: leadership.

The BP / Deepwater Horizon disaster has shown Obama and his administration misfits -- Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder -- to be more like the Keystone Kops than serious public officials. Nearly three months into the biggest environmental disaster in American history, Gov. Jindal has captured the nation's attention by doing what no governor should ever have to do -- battle his own federal government. And in the process, he has established his bona fides in ways that Obama will never understand.

Jan Brewer has served on the front lines of the border war, as chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, as a state representative and a state senator, as Arizona's Secretary of State and as governor. She is loved because she is right and because she doesn't back down.

Bobby Jindal is not yet forty, yet he has served as head of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals, in the United States House of Representatives, and as governor of the state. He is very popular because he is very successful.

Sarah Palin... Mike Huckabee...Newt Gingrich...Mitt Romney...Tim Pawlenty...Jeb Bush...If these names either don't inspire you or sound like so many warmed-over retreads with too much baggage or too little trust, perhaps a Brewer-Jindal ticket might be exactly what we need at this time in our history.
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Doug Patton is a former speechwriter and public policy advisor who now works as a freelance writer. His weekly columns appear in newspapers across the country and on various Internet websites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers can e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.