e M ashington post January 24, 2013 Bobby Jindal speaking truth to GOP power By Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will deliver a forceful denunciation of his party's Washington- centric focus in a speech to the Republican National Committee on Thursday evening, arguing that the GOP is fighting the wrong fight as it seeks to rebuild from losses at the ballot box last November. "A debate about which party can better manage the federal government is a very small and short-sighted debate," Jindal will tell the RNC members gathered in Charlotte, N.C. for the organization's winter meeting, according to a copy of the speech provided to The Fix. "If our vision is not bigger than that, we do not deserve to win." Jindal's speech — and his call to "recalibrate the compass of conservatism" — is the latest shred of a growing amount of evidence that the Louisiana governor is positioning himself to not only run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but do so in direct (or close to it) opposition to his party in the nation's capital. In the speech, Jindal will repeatedly caution that Republicans in Washington have fallen into the "sideshow trap" of debating with Democrats over the proper size of the federal government. "By obsessing with zeroes on the budget spreadsheet, we send a not-so-subtle signal that the focus of our country is on the phony economy of Washington, instead of the real economy out here in Charlotte, and Shreveport (La.), and Cheyenne (Wyo.)," Jindal is set to say at one point in the speech. At another, he will argue that "Washington has spent a generation trying to bribe our citizens and extort our states," adding: "As Republicans, it's time to quit arguing around the edges of that corrupt system." Running against Washington — and the Republicans who inhabit it — is smart politics for Jindal. Congress, viewed broadly, is at or close to all-time lows when it comes to approval ratings. In a Washing