The Monkey and I made some pretty bold predictions this year that turned out to be true:

1) that Barack Obama would win the Presidency in a landslide, and

2) in so doing, he would rewrite the red state/blue state electoral map.

With the confidence boost at our heels that only presaging political events accurately can provide, we are making some other predictions for the years to come.

1) Sarah Palin will not be the Party’s nomination for President in 2012.

2) Neither will Mike Huckabee.

3) If Mitt Romney wins the nomination, he will lose the Presidency, due to the MiMM Universal Axiom of Presidential Politics, which states: voters will decide the Presidency based on two factors: likeability and familiarity, with likeability trumping familiarity.

4) If Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal enters the race, he will win the nomination and pose the biggest challenge to President Barack Obama. Jindal has strong conservative credibility, established legislative and executive experience, and a phenomenal academic resume, but his likeability and intellect, two traits in a Republican challenger that a President Obama will make virtually imperative in 2012, will catapult him ahead of GOP challengers and make him more appealing to the broader electorate.

We have learned many things over the course of the 2008 election cycle, and one of these things is the fact that in the current political climate, viable candidates cannot just appeal to their base. A political candidate of either Party must have crossover appeal if that candidate intends to be successful. This fundamental truth is even more evident during election cycles in which one particular Party has a branding problem, as was the case in 2008 for the GOP. If President Obama is successful in office, a Republican will have as difficult a time in challenging him for the post as John McCain did in attempting to follow up GWB’s disastrous run of Republican rule.

In fact, Obama’s potential success may indicate at least one caveat to my prediction about Jindal: if Obama does enjoy high job approval, Jindal at his young age may be wise to sit 2012 out and make the rest of the Republican field battle it out amongst themselves in what would be perhaps a futile attempt to unseat a potentially extremely popular President.

And yet Jindal’s strong suits cannot be overlooked or underestimated. The son of Indian immigrants, Jindal is a Brown University graduate and a Rhodes Scholar. He has business experience working for McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm. He served in the US House of Representatives and is currently a very popular Governor of Louisiana. These credentials will appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, while his stern pro-life stance will certainly energize the GOP base. With the American Electorate demonstrating their openness to diversity in the office of the Presidency, his non-white racial background would unlikely be detrimental, and possibly a huge bonus and opporunity for the Republicans to lay claim to the banner of diversity within their ranks. His youth and lack of extensive political experience beyond a single term in the Governor’s office in Louisiana and a single term in the House of Representatives have already been mitigated by the very fact that Obama received a majority of the vote in 2008, even with relatively light experience, in comparison to his rivals.  And also like Obama, his life story is an “only in America” tale of the offspring of immigrants pulling himself up by the bootstraps and making it in a big way in American politics and rewriting the unwritten rules of Louisiana politics that would be sure to inspire a whole new generation of voters and Americans with and without conservative political leanings.

The “will she or won’t she” questions surrounding Sarah Palin and her intentions for 2012 are likely nothing more than distractions that the establishment within the GOP will capitalize on for as long as they are reaping a reward.  In other words, for as long as she is drawing crowds and attracting attention for a failing and struggling brand, they will allow and encourage her to remain in the spotlight.  Her lack of broad political experience, introspection, and fresh ideas will eventually reveal her to be nothing more than footnote in history. The Republicans are desperately in need of substance within their ranks. This time, in 2012, they will have to take a page out of the Democratic playbook a find a candidate that combines fresh ideas with charisma. As demonstrated by the fervor and excitement surrounding Obama’s election, American voters are starving to be inspired, to be moved, to be energized. Their candidate in 2012 needs to do all of the above, and it wouldn’t hurt to bring a few new ideas to the table, along with the ability to string together coherent sentences.