The Louisiana Republican Party announced today that it has begun fighting recall efforts against Bobby Jindal and three state representatives, House Speaker Chuck Kleckley of Lake Charles and representatives Greg Cromer and Kevin Pearson, both from Slidell. The recall is because of successful passage of Jindal’s educational reforms last month, which will move public school dollars to private and parochial schools. The recall petition was started by two public school teachers in Calcasieu Parish, where Lake Charles is located.

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The teachers have formed a PAC to help them achieve the necessary signatures to demand a recall election. Under Louisiana law, to force a recall, one third of the registered voters must sign the petition. Therefore, in state legislative districts, about 9,000 signatures are needed; for the Governor, slightly less than a million signatures are required.

At the time of the Wisconsin recall effort last month, I’m on record for saying that that was the silliest political strategy possible. I apologize; I was completely wrong. This is so much sillier that it’s virtually incomprehensible. Wisconsin has strong unions, and a public education system that people in the state are proud of. We don’t have any public education unions worthy of the name, and virtually everyone in the state knows that public schools are unable to teach kids the basics needed for them to thrive economically in the world. In effect, public education in this state, for the most part, amounts to a day care program so that kids who want to physically hurt each other need to do it after 3:00. If people thought public education accomplished anything, perhaps they would be willing to pay taxes to maintain it.

But it gets better. Jindal and the state legislators were just elected last November. Jindal was elected in November without any opposition. Kleckley was elected without opposition in his last two runs for office.

It is common in politics for people to build on their predecessors’ efforts. I’ve never seen something like this though, where the side that got clobbered said to itself, ‘let’s try again…this time in a place where we have virtually no popular support.’ It’s little wonder that kids graduating from high school have such dismal analytical or critical thinking skills.