.SHORTLY AFTER introducing his run for the Autonomous nomination in 1960, John F. Kennedy mentioned: "I do not remember a singular case where a vice-presidential applicant contributed an appointing vote." Still, the north-easterner picked Lyndon Johnson as his running-mate, hoping that the senator coming from Texas will aid him in southern states. Johnson tore all over the South in a train nicknamed the LBJ Express, reaching rallies in a ten-gallon hat to the strains of "The Yellow Flower of Texas". After he won, Kennedy accepted that "our company could not have actually carried the South without Johnson". That Johnson "provided the South" is now acquired knowledge. However how much variation do vice-presidential picks in fact create in elections?