Indian-origin candidate launches bid
Pegging himself as a rebellious outsider Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced Wednesday he is running for president, becoming the 13th Republican to launch a 2016 campaign for the White House.
Jindal is the first American of Indian descent to make a major presidential bid and he joins a packed field of Republican hopefuls, several of whom have higher profiles than him.
"My name is Bobby Jindal," he told a crowd of supporters near New Orleans. "I am governor of the great state of Louisiana and running for president of the greatest country in the world."
Jindal, 44, has been an intense critic of President Barack Obama's strategy for thwarting and defeating extremists including the Islamic State group.
He has cut state spending by 26 percent and slashed more than 30,000 state jobs. He opposes same-sex marriage and a national education standard known as Common Core, and advocates for the repeal of Obama's signature health care reform law.
A graduate of Oxford, Jindal worked for the large consulting firm McKinsey & Company before returning to Louisiana to pursue a life in public service and politics.
Jindal is the son of immigrants and in 2008, after a short stint in Congress, he became the nation's first Indian-American governor.
He embraced his heritage in his announcement speech, but said it was time to stop the hyphenation of Indian-Americans, African-Americans, or others.
"We are all Americans," he said, adding that the US is a nation "where what matters is the content of your character, not the color of your skin, the zip code you were born in, or your family's last name."
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