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By far the coolest vice president in history is Spiro Agnew. He actually took bribes while in office. He was also most likely more corrupt than his boss, though not as smart, and certainly lacked a certain element of tolerance.

Usually, vice presidents don't have much to do. And no, I will not use this venue to indulge in any "Dick Cheney shot a man in the face jokes" because I don't think it's fair to mock a man who has approval ratings lower than Yasser Arafat's T-cell count. Too soon? My bad.

The media spends a lot of time worrying about a position that is by definition in the background. But the truth is, nobody much cares. In 2000, Joe Lieberman nearly fellated our current second in command and no one even thought to film it.

That being said, a vice presidential nominee can have a big role in electoral politics. But Democrats have royally screwed up their choices in the last two presidential elections by trying to neutralize core strengths of their opponent and not focusing on the electoral college.

In 2000, George W. Bush ran to bring "morality" back to the Oval Office. Of course, this was a deft and thinly-veiled reference to the smokin' good times that occurred there. Bush's argument had great appeal; many, probably most, Americans were sickened by Clinton's actions and believed that a less indulgent man deserved our nation's highest office. Instead of running on eight years of mostly peace and prosperity, Al Gore decided to try to hit his opponent where he was the strongest. So the Democratic Party was treated to Joe Lieberman, who needlessly tried to kill music before he succeeded in needlessly killing Americans. But back in 2000, when life was but a dream, Lieberman represented a strong religious backbone, morality and pro-family ethics. It was the perfect antidote to one of W's fundamental appeals. But it failed.

Flash forward to four years ago when John Kerry, never a favorite in a tea leaf reading contest, selected outgoing North Carolina Senator John Edwards, outgoing due more to his inability to win his home state again than his presidential aspirations. Edwards would provide a beautiful antitode to Bush's down-home folksiness. He could peel off rural white voters from W and allow Kerry to defeat the incumbent. We all know what happened.

Picking a vice president because he or she combats a certain ideological strength of your opponent is stupid. The person nominated by his party for the highest office in the land is surely better at reflecting that ideology; that's why he's the nominee. Plus, nobody votes for the vice president. UNLESS...

Veeps can carry states. More specifically, a vice presidential candidate can carry his or her home state--especially if that candidate is a popularly elected governor. So if you were a presidential nominee, why wouldn't you run on your strengths and then select as your running mate a person who could actually deliver a state you couldn't have won otherwise? Seems obvious, right?

With that out of the way, here are my Veep picks.

Barack Obama: Tim Kaine.

The Democratic Party is flush with popular governors elected in presidentially red states. Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Ohio, Arkansas. The list goes on and on. Obama has a very real shot to win Virginia even without Kaine on the ticket. The state has had two consecutive popular Democratic governors, and come January, it will have two Democratic senators. But Tim Kaine probably puts Obama over the top. And picking up a southern state is a big deal. But Kaine also does something else: he complements a strength of Obama. Obama has a real chance to peel off a chunk of evangelical voters. Karl Rove has generally credited registering and turning out 3 million new religious voters with Bush's 2004 re-election. Kaine and Obama both speak freely, passionately and articulately about their faith. And John McCain doesn't. Obama knows about the importance of this issue in states like Colorado, Iowa and Nevada. Evangelicals and latinos represent Obama's best opportunity to make in-roads among populations that voted overwhelmingly for W.

John McCain: Mitt Romney.

Money is a big problem for John McCain. Some have speculated Obama could raise $100 million in single months of this campaign. Mitt Romney, through his business and religious connections, would help the McCain ticket in a place it is in great need: the wallet. There is a dearth of popular, Republican statewide officeholders in blue states. And while Romney would never carry Massachusetts on a McCain ticket, he could help in New Hampshire. Not to mention the fact that Romney's greatest strength, his success in the private sector, knowledge of the business world and CEO experience, all serve to quell the fears of an electorate for which the growing financial crisis is the greatest concern.