Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Who said that? Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, who ended his presidential campaign yesterday. Jim Geraghty writes today about Jindal's excellent record as governor, and asks,

What the hell, Republican-primary voters? I mean, what the hell? A record like that, and you don’t give the guy a second look?

You know why it’s great to have a governor running for president? Because you already have this nice, big detailed record to examine to get a sense of what kind of leader they’ll be. There’s a lot less guesswork than, say, giving the keys to the Oval Office to a CEO, a brain surgeon, or a real-estate developer and saying, “good luck.”

Rod Dreher writes at American Conservative,

I know there must be some pro-Jindal Republicans in Louisiana somewhere, but I haven’t yet met one in the three years I’ve been back. When I ask them why they turned on him, every single one says a variation of, “Because he’s sacrificing the state for his national political ambitions.” Most of them add, “He’s destroyed LSU.”

To which Geraghty responds,

Hell, man, we don’t need conservatives and Republicans to make those arguments. We can get them from liberals and Democrats.

Here’s a governor willing to make the hard cuts, not just the easy ones, and he gets incoming fire from state Republicans and self-identified conservatives. The Left, hey, we count on their opposition. The wishy-washy middle who want everything funded and somebody else to pay for it -- “Hey, let’s just tax the richest one percent!” -- we figure they’ll abandon ship the moment students start protesting. But no, Jindal’s approval rating plummeted in large part because Louisiana Republicans -- many of whom would describe themselves as conservative -- turned against him for “cuts to health-care services and higher education.”

See, a lot of us conservatives walk around in a reassuring trance believing that people like and want small government. Most people don’t. At most, they like and want small government for other people. Farmers like farm subsidies, defense-contractor employees like big spending by the Pentagon, most senior citizens explode at the slightest mention of cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Most self-identified conservatives not only don’t fight for smaller government, they fight against it when it personally impacts them. And then they turn around and complain that lawmakers never manage to reduce the size of government.

Read more here.