.SHORTLY AFTER revealing his run for the Autonomous election in 1960, John F. Kennedy pointed out: "I do not recall a solitary situation where a vice-presidential prospect assisted an appointing ballot." Still, the north-easterner selected Lyndon Johnson as his running-mate, wishing that the statesman coming from Texas will assist 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 Flower of Texas". After he won, Kennedy acknowledged that "we could not have actually carried the South without Johnson". That Johnson "supplied the South" is now received wisdom. But just how much variation perform vice-presidential selections really make in political elections?