The similarities between 36-year-old Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama are tantalizing to many in the GOP.

In fact, the Jindal love-fest is growing every week.

After only 143 days as the nation’s youngest governor, Gov. Jindal’s name is being bandied about as a potential running mate for John McCain.

“The governor has been able to reach across the aisle and get things done for the people of Louisiana, helping the folks in New Orleans recover from the storm,” McCain said of Jindal at a recent news conference.

“That would be something that I could show the American people as a way people from both sides of the aisle can sit down and work together.”

RUNNING IN TANDEM: Bobby Jindal, seen here with John McCain, is barely half McCain’s age, but is often talked about as a potential running mate.

John McCain hasn’t said much about selecting a running mate, and Bobby Jindal insists he’s not campaigning for the Vice President slot.

In recent weeks, however, McCain has met regularly with Jindal, as well as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Regardless, Bobby Jindal, an Ivy League intellectual with reformist zeal, has come to represent for some GOP leaders the youthful, pragmatic streak they believe critical to reviving the Republican Party.

In Lousiana, Bobby Jindal has gained the backing of both fiscal and social conservatives, while also appealing to moderate suburbanites - a formula Republicans believe John McCain must achieve to win the presidency.

Of course, it’s an easier task in Louisiana than under the national media microscope. Jindal has done it by making clear that he personally embraces social conservative orthodoxies, but downplaying them in public.

While running for governor in 2007 (he narrowly lost an earlier bid for the office in 2003), he rarely raised such hot-button issues, focusing on free market, populist themes such as cutting taxes to stimulate growth.

He won the governor’s race going away, but putting Jindal on a McCain ticket would invite closer scrutiny, and not all of it would be pleasant.

He is against abortion in nearly all circumstances and supports teaching “intelligent design” in public schools. He opposes gay marriage. He voted to build a fence at the Mexico border. In Congress, he voted in lockstep with Bush.

Nevertheless, many Republicans are salivating over the doors Jindal might open - capitalizing on the youth, energy and unconventional appeal that Barack Obama has invigorated the Democratic party with for months.

Bobby Jindal himself dismisses the idea that he is a “Republican Obama,” but close advisers and other party officials embrace the idea.

Campaigning, Jindal certainly attracts the kind of adoration typical of Obama supporters. He is remarkably accomplished for his age, intelligent and compassionate, has a great gift for oratory, and a minority. Sound familiar?

All told, it’s hard to see how Bobby Jindal wouldn’t make John McCain even tougher to beat. Whether he’s a plausible president, however, remains to be seen.