(Pella, IA) Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has been participating in town hall meetings hosted by the Believe Again PAC which is the Super PAC that supports his campaign. The meeting room at the historic Pella Opera House was at capacity as well over 100 Iowans filled the room. Jindal’s campaign told Caffeinated Thoughts that they didn’t want to do “hit and run” stops in their 99 county tour, but actually spend time in each county interacting with voters. Town halls such as these are part of that strategy.
This is the third such town hall this writer has attended, and each time Jindal has had a filled room, has spent at least 35 minutes taking questions, and generally stays until anyone who has wanted to visit with him or take a picture with him has had an opportunity. While his campaign and the Believe Again PAC events don’t rival the size of recent events held by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in Iowa, the Jindal campaign have offered frequent, smaller events that have been well attended.
It’s a strategy that has worked well in Iowa with former Governor Mike Huckabee in 2008 and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum in 2012. Slow and steady has won the race in Iowa in recent cycles with early frontrunners failing to win the First-in-the-Nation caucus. It remains to be seen if this strategy will work in 2016 with a crowded Republican field of 18 candidates.
According to the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Caucus 2016 candidate tracker Jindal currently is in fourth place among all candidates in terms of the number of events he has participated in. He is in third place among Republicans. Since November 17, 2012 Santorum leads Republicans participating in 126 events over 47 days. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has participated in 79 events over 41 days. Jindal has completed 73 events over 40 days. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley leads the Democratic field with 81 events over 29 days.
Jindal has completed 15 town hall meetings hosted by Believe Again PAC in Iowa He currently has three additional events that are scheduled with Believe Again PAC in Marshalltown tonight, on August 31st in Sheldon, and September 3rd in Dubuque.
In Pella Jindal spoke for over 30 minutes deviating a little from his standard stump speech to discuss the recent down turn in the market.
Jindal also spend over 40 minutes answering questions. The first three questions were related to immigration as that was a prominent concern among those who attended.