.SHORTLY AFTER introducing his run for the Autonomous election in 1960, John F. Kennedy said: “I do not recollect a single instance where a vice-presidential candidate contributed an electoral ballot.” Still, the north-easterner chosen Lyndon Johnson as his running-mate, really hoping that the senator from Texas would help him in southern conditions. Johnson tore around the South in a train nicknamed the LBJ Express, coming to rallies in a ten-gallon hat to the tensions of “The Yellowish Rose of Texas”.
After he won, Kennedy acknowledged that “we could not have carried the South without Johnson”. That Johnson “provided the South” is actually now obtained wisdom. Yet how much distinction carry out vice-presidential picks in fact make in elections?