Who becomes more viable on a second, third or even fourth convention ballot. I don't know. Romney and his money can buy a LOT of arm twisting. OTOH, someone like Barbour (who knows where the bodies are buried, mostly because he buried them), will be owed A LOT of favors. Then there's the "vanilla" candidates like Thune and Pawlenty. No one loves them, but no one hates them and they don't make many enemies. That would help. Ask Warren Harding and Abe Lincoln. For these reasons, I think it's virtually impossible to predict who will actually secure the nomination. There are just too many variables.
Having said all that, I think Jindal as VP is more than even money - 1-3, perhaps. For the first time in a long time, the convention might actually be interesting to watch.
Romney can’t win the primaries but a TEA party candidate can. It all depends on who is running. Romney has some people who really don’t like him at all. Many of them are in the South. After this next census realignment, the electoral votes, and therefore the delegates, will be in the South.
As for Jindal, he has Obama’s eligibility problem when it comes to VP. If the republicans want to spend the election arguing eligibility, they will lose a big advantage they have against Obama because they will be defending Jindal. Jindal’s parents were not citizens when he was born here. He may be a citizen, but he was not naturally born a citizen.