In their continuing hunt for VP candidates, both Obama and McCain would do well to lean towards quieter choices, Thomas Schwartz argues in today's LA Times:

Vice presidents once were little more than Senate chairs and presidential spares. Then they became presumptive heirs, favored candidates for their party's presidential nomination. George W. Bush broke that pattern by picking a running mate with a great resume but no wish to run eight years later. John McCain and Barack Obama would be wise to do the same...

From 1960 to 2000, four presidents retired and were succeeded by their vice presidents as party nominee. Three other presidents ran for reelection and lost, but their running mates all sought the nomination later, and two got it.

Despite the Bush/Cheney exception, the pattern is now so ingrained that if McCain or Obama puts a plausible electoral successor on the ticket, he will have partly rigged the 2016 election, loading it like a bad pair of dice.

No one is smart enough to choose the best candidate for president eight years in advance...A better running mate is a distinguished elder statesman eminently qualified to assume the presidency but too old to run in eight years.

Schwartz's suggestions? Elizabeth Dole for McCain; Bob Graham for Obama. Given the increasing "you complete me" rhetoric surrounding the VP hunt, however, it would be surprising to see either candidate take Schwartz's advice.