It’s a great honor for Bob McDonnell to be asked to give the Republican response to the State of the Union next month.
But let’s not be naive.
It’s an extraordinary test for a man who’s been Governor for less than a week.
But it’s the nature of politics today- your time in the spotlight can come far more quickly than you ever imagined.
You’d better take advantage,
Cause there’s no guarantee that you’ll get another shot.
Remember last February when Barack Obama was preparing to addressing the Joint Session of Congress.
The GOP picked Bobby Jindal, the youthful Governor from Louisiana, to offer the Republican response.
It seemed like a perfect choice.
Jindal was publicly calling for Louisiana to reject stimulus money that came with mandates that might cost the state money in the long term.
The party was searching for a new, much younger face in the McCain aftermath. Pundits were calling him the Republican Obama.
The buildup was enormous.
You might have thought that we were watching the first debate of 2012.
But Jindal fell flat.
12 minutes from the Louisiana Governor were no match for an hour of President Obama.
A deer in the headlights look.
Critics called him everything from “childish” to “insane.”
He returned to Louisiana with a “not ready for prime time label” post-it attached to his forehead.
No longer a rising star, just another sacrificial lamb.
Next week it’s McDonnell’s chance.
He has a couple of advantages over Jindal-
While Obama is still relatively popular personally, his policies are not.
The public’s anger with the Democrats running Congress is at a fever pitch.
But the expectations will still be high.
If McDonnell can provide the outline of a response to the Democrats’ agenda that does more than just say no , that demonstrates that the GOP really wants to be solution-oriented, and that highlights the dedication to public service and civic engagement that McDonnell personally modeled in the days preceding his inaugural, he can do his party (and himself) a whole lot of good.
While many Virginians will be comparing McDonnell’s performance to similar efforts by Tim Kaine and Jim Webb, the national barometer will be a very different one.
Will McDonnell succeed where Jindal failed and establish himself as a genuine voice on the national landscape?
McDonnell’s response to the SOTU was an embarrassment.
A Greek chorus of cronies cheering his tired and true GOP mantras.
They even applauded at the wrong times. Can’t they folo directions?
I’m sure most Americans thought it was corny. certainly not gubernatorial, much less presidential.