Jindal: Conservatives ‘ready for a hostile takeover’

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) charmed social conservatives with a funny and fiery speech at Friday’s Value Voters Summit in Washington.

{mosads}Jindal railed against the left and President Obama for failing to stand up for religious liberty and showing weakness abroad; and echoed Bill Clinton’s infamous campaign slogan in declaring that what’s ailing America is “not the economy — it’s the culture, stupid.”

“The thing that worries me the most, the thing that keeps me up at night, is this president’s relentelss effort to change the American dream,” Jindal told the crowd.

He said Obama’s American dream is “all about envy, class warfare, redistribution” and “growing the federal government.”

“That’s not the American Dream that my parents taught me,” Jindal added, describing an “America where we are forever young, an America where our best days are ahead of us, not behind us, an America where circumstances of your birth don’t determine your outcomes as an adult, where we’re not guaranteed euqal outcomes, we’re guaranteed equal opportunity.”

It was one of a dozen lines in his speech that drew enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

Punctuated by bursts of laughter and cheers, Jindal’s address was one that could put the potential presidential contender back on the map. Jindal made no secret of his interest in a run, although he routinely polls in the bottom three of the potential GOP presidential field.

Jindal won plaudits from social conservatives for his outspoken opposition to abortion rights, fight against Common Core educational standards and, more recently, his defense of Phil Robertson, the star of the TLC reality show “Duck Dynasty,” after Robertson drew fire for a number of racist and homophobic comments he made in an interview.

On Friday, Jindal reminded the crowd of all of those instances again, prompting cheers.

But he also introduced them to the Jindal they likely didn’t know — the son of Indian immigrants (who “came here legally,” he told the crowd to laughter), of a father who called every company in the phone book until “finally he wears someone down” to give him a job, the husband of a wife whom he “fell in love with…all over again” after seeing her hold his newborn son.

And a comical Jindal, as well — the governor at one point told the story of a friend’s dismissal of the pain of childbirth as similar to passing kidney stones, a comment he called “the dumbest thing I ever heard” as the crowd erupted in laughter.

“There’s a reason god in his infinite wisdom does not allow men to have babies,” Jindal joked.

He also suggested, at one point, Obama “sue Harvard law school to get his tuition money back.”

But he was scathing in his attack on Obama’s foreign policy, which he said “continues to make America not only weaker but the world a more dangerous place.”

And Jindal at one point smirked, of Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation, “Isn’t it great that he’s about to be out of a job?”

The sweeping address had all the trappings of a presidential stump speech, including a reference to Jindal’s potential Democratic opponent, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, considered the party’s likely nominee if she runs.

When considering whether the Obama administration is “the most incompetent” or “the most extremely ideologically liberal” administration in our lifetimes, Jindal quoted Clinton’s infamous outburst under questioning from Republicans at a congressional hearing on the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi

“The only satisfactory answer I’ve got is, to quote Secretary Clinton, ‘What difference does it make?’” he said, again prompting laughter and cheers from the crowd.

Jindal closed by applauding the “American family, out there creating something out of nothing,” and issuing a rallying cry that could’ve doubled as a presidential campaign slogan, exiting the stage to a standing ovation.

“There is rebellion brewing amongst us in these United States of America,” he said. “We are ready for a hostile takeover.”