Bobby Jindal launched a full on attack on Donald Trump today at the National Press Club. It wasn’t a mean spirited attack. In my mind, as the RedState “Trumpette”, I really can’t disagree with anything he said. The full speech is here, I encourage you to read it. The full speech plus the Q&A session is below.

Today I’m going to put my own political mission aside and talk about something more important than myself, more important than any single candidate or person.

Our country is slipping away right before our very eyes. We are descending down the path to socialism, dependence on government is becoming the new American Dream, we are unfazed by the selling of body parts as commodities, and we are pathetically weak in international affairs. America is slipping away, right in front of us in real time.

And yet this is a moment of great opportunity for America. This is a time when we can make dramatic changes, we can embrace conservative ideals, and we can literally turn our country around.

I believe the country is ready for that. You can see it in people’s eyes, you can read it in the polls, America is ready for a politically incorrect conservative revolution.

The liberalism and incompetence of the Obama Administration have pushed us to the edge, to the point where you can literally see the idea of America slipping away – and people are dreading it, and they are ready to stop that from happening.

The American people have a massive appetite for a rebirth, a massive appetite for making America Great again.

With this introduction, one which I think should be tattooed on the forehead of every GOP candidate in this race he turned his attention to Donald Trump.

• I like the idea of a DC outsider.
• I like that he doesn’t care about political correctness.
• I like the fact that he says things people are thinking but are afraid to say.
• I like that he uses Ronald Reagan’s theme of making America Great Again.
• Trump’s diagnoses is correct — the professional political class in Washington, including the Republicans, is incompetent and full of nonsense. He is right. The political class in Washington has abandoned us. Trump has performed an important service by taking on the political class and exposing them for being completely full of nonsense.

The Jindal says now we should do for Trump what Trump has done for the political class: say what people are thinking but are afraid to say:

• But, it is now time for us to do what Donald would do, and say the thing that everyone is thinking, but is afraid to say out loud. So I’m going to do it.

The Donald Trump Act is great, and the idea of Donald Trump is great — BUT the reality of Donald Trump is absurd, he’s a non-serious carnival act.

He (correctly, in my view) labels Trump as a narcissist and egomaniac. Neither of those are really news and neither are unknown in politics. But Jindal (again, correctly) points to what happens when you marry narcissism and egotism with a lack of adherence to any principle greater than one’s self. Not that we really needed it, we have lived through two Obama terms in the White House.

• The conservative cause deserves more than a power-hungry shark who eats whatever is in front of him…because sooner or later, we will be his next meal.

…

• If we nominate him, he will self-destruct in a massive way in a general election. He may be Hillary Clinton’s only hope.
• Even worse, if you are a conservative, it wouldn’t matter if he won. He believes in nothing, we have no idea what he would do.

…

• Donald Trump’s campaign is not about making America Great Again, it is about making Donald Trump Great.

I think there are a couple of things afoot here.

First, and foremost Trump is sucking the oxygen out 2016 GOP primary. This is good (because as Governor Jindal says, Trump is revealing the GOP establishment for the assclowns that they are and he’s talking about subjects they’d rather you didn’t think about) and it is bad because we have a great crop of candidates — we probably haven’t had this many good candidates if you count up everyone who has run in a presidential primary since 1988 — and Trump is killing them. And when he self-immolates, because I have no doubt that one day he’s going an ad lib too far, the only guy left with money is going to be Jeb Bush.

Secondly, fights with Trump are exceedingly low budget (and low brow). It is the battlefield of Twitter and Instagram where the media cover the blow-by-blow for free. Jindal has to feel that this is the way to go to break out of the pack. Worst casing it, he gets knocked out of the race and accomplishes nothing. But hope is not a method and if he doesn’t do something he’s simply going to fade away.

I think Jindal’s approach  could very well work for the simple reason that he acknowledges the grievances of Trump followers and embraces those grievances. Instead of labeling them morons and racists and white supremacists, he says “hey, you guys see this, too, and even though you are angry think about what the ramifications are.”

Jindal is a smart guy. He likes retail politics, he knows policy and he is very disciplined. He has basically put the Louisiana Democrat party on the federal endangered species list. He has to know this will be a fight and you can bet he has his “play sheet”, his first 20 or so scripted calls, ready. In fact, he’s already using them.