"Custer, S.D. - Sen. Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, unexpectedly revealed today that he was hospitalized three times between 1960 and 1966 for psychiatric treatment, suffering from nervous exhaustion and fatigue."

That's probably the best example since the 1960's of a pick that just went off the tracks. Sen. Georgie McGovern must have had no idea about his friend Sen. Eagleton's medical issues, which included 'shock therapy' treatments.

McGovern soon ditched Eagleton and chose Sargeant Shriver. They didn't exactly challenge Nixon and Agnew in the 1972 elections.

Fast forward to 1984 when former Vice President Walter Mondale ran against Ronald Reagan, Mondale's pick of Geraldine Ferraro stirred things up, first and foremost because she was a woman.

Mondale thought it would give his campaign a boost, and at first it did. But Mondale was no match for Reagan, who won by a landslide, as the Democrats couldn't even carry a majority of the female vote that year.

It's not so much that Ferraro was a mistake - she just didn't give the ticket the boost that Mondale and other Democrats had hoped for.

The same might be said of John Edwards, when he was tapped by John Kerry four years ago. The two Democratic Senators had run 1-2 in the primaries, and the pick seemed to make sense.

But Edwards couldn't even deliver his home state of North Carolina for the Democrats, as the race ended with rumblings of a divide between the two men. And after watching Edwards not exactly tell the whole truth about an extramarital affair, maybe Kerry had reason to be suspicious of his number two.

One VP choice who was roundly derided, Dan Quayle, still made it into the winner's circle. His selection by the first President George Bush caused a media firestorm at the 1988 Republican Convention.

"He can speak for the baby boomers' aspirations, and at the same time please the conservative wing of the party," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona at the time.

But then Quayle got caught up in a series of other issues, his thin record in the Senate and what he did during the Vietnam War.

"It's true, he didn't go to Vietnam because he wasn't called,'' the first President Bush told a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. ''But here's another truth: He didn't go to Canada and he didn't burn his draft card.''

Quayle was later scorched by Democratic VP nominee, fellow Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas in that memorable moment of the 1988 VP debate, after Quayle had again pointed out that President Kennedy also had little experience when he ran for the White House in 1960.

"I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the Presidency."

Bentsen was then ready for the kill.

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Quayle never really got over that and all the jabs for things like telling the school kid that he had spelled potato wrong (Quayle added an 'e' on the end) and more.

So, as Barack Obama and John McCain choose a running mate, I'm sure their staff is hoping they haven't picked someone who is going to force the candidate off message in the run to Election Day 2008.