Jindal running to challenge establishment — both GOP and Democratic

MONTICELLO - Bobby Jindal says he 'running without permission from headquarters,” and that seemed just fine with his audience at a Monday afternoon campaign stop in Monticello.

More than 70 people who crowded into the Fancy Fritter Restaurant, normally closed on Mondays, applauded the Louisiana second-term GOP governor's criticism of the 'permanent governing class” that doesn't live under the same rules as voters in Iowa, Louisiana and the rest of the country.

'We've got to fight the establishment,” he said in response to a question about how he will deal with RINOs - Republicans in Name Only.

Jindal, who has been drawing sizable crowds - more than 200 in Cedar Rapids on Saturday and 300-plus in Davenport on Sunday - drew a sharp distinction between himself and the Washington establishment, Democrat and Republican alike, that doesn't want to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act 'because it's too much work.”

'They don't want to talk about marriage. They saw that as a distraction,” he said. 'They really don't believe that you can shrink the size of the federal government.”

That's why the former U.S. representative is proposing term limits and a ban on members of Congress becoming lobbyists.

The lunch-hour crowd applauded his defense of traditional marriage, religious liberty and gun rights, and his call for securing the Southern border, for shrinking the size of government and reducing the nation's $18 trillion debt.

Many in the crowd said they have not decided who they will support in the caucuses, said Jones County Republican Party Chairman Jerry Retzlaff of Monticello. However, he thinks they all agree a change of direction is needed.

'We've gone so far to the left that we have to turn things back around,” Retzlaff said. 'I can't think of one thing that's going in the right direction.”

He is concerned that the landscape has changed this year because television networks say they will limit the number of candidates they will invite to participate in debates beginning later this summer. Fifteen Republicans have entered the race for the presidential nomination.

'We're getting a lot of buzz here because they're all fighting to get into the top 10, to get into the debate,” Retzlaff said. 'And it just becomes a money game.”

Jindal acknowledged that he won't raise as much as others in the race.

'This election is not an auction,” he said. So he's campaigning the old-fashioned way.

He has promised to do dozens of town hall meetings to speak directly to voters as he campaigns for support in Iowa's first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses.

'What encourages me is the sense of urgency,” Jindal said. 'It gives me hope in America to see this many people come and get involved.”

Jones County will host two more GOP presidential hopefuls this week. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will visit McOtto's Family Restaurant in Anamosa at 5:30 July 15 and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is scheduled to visit McOtto's for a breakfast meeting Friday.