Perhaps more importantly, Rush Limbaugh gushes about him. And former Moral Majority spokesman Cal Thomas recently wrote, "Jindal is a comer, possibly the new face of the GOP. He plans to run for another term in 2011, but won't talk yet about 2012. The GOP leadership had better listen to him. His proposals are the way back for a party that has lost its way." And consider this recent passage from 2theadvocate.com:

Last week's run- up to Tuesday's historic presidential inauguration saw a swell of seminars and pundits declaring Gov. Bobby Jindal "the Republicans' Barack Obama."
In much the way The Weekly Standard editor William Kristol's commentaries made Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a viable candidate for the vice presidency, conservative pundits spent much of last week running Jindal's name up the flagpole and looking around for salutes.

Columnist William Rusher put Jindal on his short list of 2012 presidential candidates. Anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist named Jindal his favorite in the National Journal's Congress Daily.

The same article illustrated how even Left-leaning journals have taken note of the Louisiana governor's appeal:

In naming Jindal one of the 10 people who could change the world, The New Statesman pointed out that he skipped the Republican National Convention to handle Hurricane Gustav.
Like soon-to-be President Obama, Jindal has a compelling life story that sounds a lot more familiar than a "stood-on-the-shoulders-of-a-wealthy-and-powerful-father/husband" narrative.

But let's review just why such high priests of the culture wars are hailing Jindal credentials. He is a convert from Hinduism not just to Catholicism, but to a peculiar dogmatic hybrid that may have ecumenical appeal on the Religious Right. As I noted in Part Fifty-nine of this series:

Recruiting and grooming a generation of political leaders that fit this bill is an obvious necessity for the long-term viability of the Religious Right. Writing in the August 29, 2007 edition of the Washington Post, former Bush White House speechwriter Michael Gerson observed of then Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Jindal:

Jindal -- a convert to Christianity from a Hindu background -- has none of the politician's typical reticence on religion. "I'm proud of my faith," he told me in a phone interview. "I believe in God, that Jesus died and rose. I can't divide my public and private conscience. I can't stop being a Christian, and wouldn't want to for a moment of the day."

Gerson continued:

And Jindal's chosen tradition is a muscular Roman Catholicism. In an article published in the 1990s, he argued, "The same Catholic Church which infallibly determined the canon of the Bible must be trusted to interpret her handiwork; the alternative is to trust individual Christians, burdened with, as Calvin termed it, their 'utterly depraved' minds, to overcome their tendency to rationalize, their selfish desires, and other effects of original sin." And elsewhere: "The choice is between Catholicism's authoritative Magisterium and subjective interpretation which leads to anarchy and heresy."

Jindal's complete statement can be found in a 1996 article entitled How Catholicism is Different. The young governor is also not adverse to playing the "secular-as-equivalent-to-religious-hostility" card. As Jindal has written in a piece entitled Atheism's Gods:

THE wave of political correctness, which has affected universities at every level, has also infected religious and philosophical thought. Whereas Western universities once existed to train clergymen and educate others in the fundamentals of the Christian faith, modern centers of higher learning are much more secular and skeptical toward anything remotely religious. Faith is a taboo subject among many of the educated elite; indeed, persons with strong religious convictions are often viewed with scorn and disapproval. Equating all religious beliefs with the seemingly intolerant attitude of Fundamentalists, the more ardent critics of religion are so bold as to equate faith with ignorance and disparage any attempt to support faith with reason as naive.

As well as:

...Jindal is force to be reckoned with. He is fervently anti-choice, anti-gay rights and anti-embryonic stem cell research - policy positions while in step with the current Vatican hierarchy but very much out-of-step with the majority of ordinary mainstream American Catholics. Jindal meshes this set of beliefs with a laissez-faire economic outlook.

In my column discussing the void Richard John Neuhaus's passing has left on the Religious Right, I pointed out the importance of those who can attract both Catholic an evangelical support.  While not having experienced both Protestantism and Catholicism, Jindal does know how to please strident Evangelicals. One of his latest actions reflects this appeal.

In June 2008 Jindal signed into law The Louisiana Science Education Act which allows for the teaching of creationism in the public schools of his state. For someone who claims to strictly adhere to Catholicism, I find the governor's approval of the bill a bit odd. The Vatican, after all, is on record strongly acknowledging evolution while practically dismissing creationism.

But as I said before, that's a Catholic that conservative evangelicals can get behind!