Do Governors Make Good VPs?

At the recent Iowa Brown and Black forum, presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson asked New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton “Don’t you think that governors make good presidents?”  The reference to Clinton’s husband, former Arkansas Governor and President Bill Clinton was not lost on Ms. Clinton, who shot back “I think they also make good vice presidents.”

Do they?  Dan Coen of VicePresidents.com took the opportunity to push a message to his email list, with the subject “Senator Clinton, Governors Do Not Make Good Vice Presidents”:

The fact is, Governors make Presidents and Senators Make Vice Presidents. That is why Governors Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were candidates for President. And, that is why Senators Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, Lloyd Bentsen, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards were candidates for Vice President.

No word yet on just how concerned the presidential campaigns, whether pushing a Senator, a Governor, or Other, are with such criticism.  The last Senator to be elected to the White House was John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in 1960.