Republicans who are NOT running in 2012 ...

At least that's what they are saying as they head for Iowa. The truly scary part about all the non-candidates is that they are, well, scary!

Last weekend, 18 days after Barack Obama decisively defeated their candidate for president, a mostly Republican crowd of self-described conservatives received their first introduction to someone many prominent members of the GOP think could be the party's own version of Obama.

Like the president-elect, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is young (37), accomplished (a Rhodes scholar) and, as the son of Indian immigrants, someone familiar with breaking racial and cultural barriers. He came to Iowa to deliver a pair of speeches, and his mere presence ignited talk that the 2012 presidential campaign has begun here, if coyly. Already, a fierce fight is looming between him and other Republicans -- former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who arrived in Iowa a couple of days before him, and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is said to be coming at some point -- for the hearts of social conservatives. [...]

"The Republicans really have no choice except to look at some people more youthful if they want to have a better chance of winning," said Betty E. Johnson, an independent and the wife of a Cedar Rapids pastor, who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 but who went for Obama over 72-year-old John McCain. "I liked Obama's energy and hope. I don't know, but maybe a younger person would give Republicans a feeling of more energy, openness."

Jindal insists he is ignoring all the speculation. In Cedar Rapids, at a breakfast event devoted to addressing this beleaguered city's efforts to rebound from its disastrous flood last summer, he avoided any reference to 2012, staying focused on explaining Louisiana's methods for coping with hurricane floods in emergencies on his watch.

Meanwhile, others around the country were talking him up. No less an aspiring kingmaker than Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of McCain's failed presidential bid, sees Jindal as the Republican Party's destiny. "The question is not whether he'll be president, but when he'll be president, because he will be elected someday." The anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist believes, too, that Jindal is a certainty to occupy the White House, and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has described him as "the next Ronald Reagan."

Is Jindal the Republican Obama?

Jindal is, above all else, a political meteor, sharing Obama's precocious skills for reaching the firmament in a hurry. It was just four years ago, after losing a gubernatorial election, that he won election to Congress, and only this year that he became Louisiana's governor, the first nonwhite to hold the office since Reconstruction. And now, 10 months into his first term, the talk of a presidential bid is getting louder among his boosters.

Youth, Norquist notes, has never been at a greater premium for Republicans in search of a new path. And the generally positive reaction to Jindal's handling of Louisiana's mass evacuation in August before Hurricane Gustav, and his response in the storm's aftermath, bolstered the image of the new governor's vigor.

"If anything, McCain's candidacy suggests that age is not always a positive -- and sometimes is a negative," Norquist says. "As Republicans, you have a real problem now with younger voters and immigrants. If you were going to central casting for a candidate to deal with all that, who do you have? Jindal. He is young, and he looks young. . . . He's a great communicator. And his record is that he's sharp and quick with policy."

Religious Right Republicans like Jindal because of his steadfast opposition to abortion without exceptions; his disapproval of embryonic stem cell research; and his support for teaching intelligent design (creationism) in public school science classes.

Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin share these views.

If these candidates represent the next-wave Republican generation, the country could be in big trouble. Let's hope the corporate wing of the party breaks away to form an alternative party.