So who'll be number 2? The vice presidency is now much more important than many people realize.

• Author: Stolberg, Sheryl Gay
• Position: ELECTION 2008

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Memo to voters: Of the 46 Vice Presidents of the United States since 1789, 14--nearly a third--have become President, and nine got the job without being elected.

One was Theodore Roosevelt. Thrust into the job after President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, he became one of America's presidential greats. Another was Andrew Johnson, whose tenure went from bad (he was incoherent and probably drunk when he took the vice presidential oath) to worse (after succeeding Abraham Lincoln in 1865, he was impeached).

Despite this, Americans typically pay little attention to the No. 2 when voting for President. But these days, running mates do matter. Dick Cheney, and Al Gore before him, are probably the most consequential Vice Presidents in American history.

In the Democratic presidential race, there has been lots of talk about a "dream ticket" of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton together, but the big question is who gets the top spot on the ticket. On the Republican side, speculation mounts over who might be a suitable running mate for Senator John McCain--not an insignificant question, given McCain's age, 71, and his status as a cancer survivor.

"Running mates not only matter, but in this cycle they're going to have greater importance," says Scott Reed, who ran Senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign.

That might come as a surprise to the Founding Fathers. Beyond assigning the Vice President the responsibility of serving as the president of the Senate and breaking tie votes there, they didn't give the job much thought, says Stanley N. Katz, a constitutional historian at Princeton University.

'MOST INSIGNIFICANT OFFICE'

For much of American history, the vice presidency has been more a target for jokes than a sought-after job. George Clinton, who became Thomas Jefferson's Vice President in 1805, called the job a "respectable retirement," after 18 years as Governor of New York. In 1848, Senator Daniel Webster turned down an offer to be Zachary Taylor's vice-presidential running mate, saying, "I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead." And John Nance Garner, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice President for his first two terms (1933-41), said the job wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit. (Actually, he used a cruder word than that.)

Many an early Vice President expressed frustration in the job. John Adams, the country's first Vice President, famously called it "the most insignificant office."

In the early days of...