The Democrats have given us a gift by nominating one of the weakest candidates in history, media adulation aside. Let's not blow it.

Normally, you don't want a VP candidate who outshines the person at the top of the ticket. The McCain candidacy is the exception to that rule. We need a VP candidate whose strengths are such that they take the spotlight off of McCain's weaknesses.

Jindal is the right guy. His strengths correspond perfectly to McCain's weaknesses: telegenic, great speaker, unswerving conservative, executive experience. His weaknesses-youth and inexperience-correspond to McCain's strengths-maturity and experience.

McCain-Jindal is our "dream ticket." For years, the Dems have been looking to break our hold on the South by producing a massive turnout of African Americans in Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia. Given the "stay-home" attitude of many evangelicals in the South this time around and Obama's appeal to African American voters, they have a real chance of accomplishing this goal in November. By nominating Jindal, McCain will energize the evangelicals in the South who already know the Governor, and McCain may even regain lost ground with leaders such as Dobson. Without a "Solid South", we can't win. McCain can't attract enough Dems to break their hold on the Northeast or on California in order to counter our potential losses in the South. His only real chance at winning blue states is with Michigan and New Hampshire. Evangelical votes are also critical to winning states like Missouri, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana. He needs Catholics to have any prayer of winning Pennsylvania, and Jindal, as a convert to Catholicism, has great appeal to the Catholic community.

And best of all, conservative principles are not just a political ploy for Jindal. He believes them. He lives them. He puts them to work. Again, he offers a perfect complement to McCain's pragmatic approach to reaching across the aisle. McCain-Jindal brings the best of the three strongest elements of the party together: the ideological social conservatives (i.e., those who understand that human capital and the context in which it develops, the family and the institutions that support it, are the important assets in any society and must, therefore, be protected and nurtured), the ideologically oriented fiscal conservatives (i.e., those who understand that low taxes and free markets are foundational to the American way of life), and the "get-it-done" pragmatists (i.e., those who have the know-how to put the ideas of the social and fiscale conservatives into action). As such, a McCain-Jindal ticket shares much with Reagan-Bush in 1980. (Apologies to my fellow social conservatives, but we cannot win a national election without creating alliances.)

Even if a McCain-Jindal ticket were to lose, nominating Jindal is still the right move. The name ID and fundraising prowess he will gain as a result of being on the national ticket this year will position him to run and win in 2012.