Second-Guessing The No. 2 Spot

And of course there are vice presidents that no one remembers. Levi Morton ring a bell? William Rufus King? Schuyler Colfax?

You could plausibly argue that the vice president represents a (small-d) anti-democratic element in our political system. Voters now spend well more than a year cross-examining presidential candidates in a protracted primary battle. To get a presidential nomination, you have to earn it on the stump, in debates, in fundraising, in political connections. But to become a vice president, you potentially need to merely catch one other person's fancy.

"This is a flaw in the system," says historian Alan Brinkley of Columbia University. "Vice presidents may not be important when they're vice president, but they're really important if the president dies. And no one has vetted them except the person who has chosen the vice-presidential candidate."

That's not precisely true: The voters decide on the ticket in November. But the bottom of the ticket is rarely a significant factor. (Don't tell anyone, but Biden and Palin probably won't make a huge difference.)

What's indisputable is that the moment someone is tapped to be the running mate of the presidential nominee, he or she leaps toward the front of the line of potential future presidents.

Not once in the past half-century has a sitting vice president sought a presidential nomination and failed to get it. Fourteen men one-third of our presidents -- have first served as vice presidents. (For those doing the math, there have been 42 presidents so far; Grover Cleveland, with his nonconsecutive terms, gets counted twice, which is why George W. Bush is called the 43rd president.) Of the 14 veeps turned POTUSes, eight assumed office upon the death of the president, and a ninth, Gerald Ford, became president when Richard Nixon resigned. (For Al Gore, the office proved not to be a springboard to the presidency -- why not is of course a long story -- but to the Nobel Peace Prize.)

Either Joe Biden or Sarah Palin will be the next occupant of the quirky office of the vice president of the United States. The other has a good shot at historical obscurity. Would-be veeps are destined to become trivia answers. Thus it has always been with the No. 2 slot. Let us listen again to Vice President John Adams: "Today I am nothing; tomorrow I may be everything." It's a little crazy, but it's how we do it here.