With Jim Webb pulling out of the Veepstakes—following former Gov. Mark Warner’s withdrawal in June—it is almost assured that America’s next vice president won’t have an address south of the Potomac River.

What about Gov. Tim Kaine, you may ask. He’s not going to be vice president. Why? Talk to his good friend, and lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling, a Republican.

If Barack Obama plucks Democrat Kaine from Virginia’s Executive Mansion, the GOP’s Bolling becomes governor of the commonwealth of Virginia. That means Bolling could run for governor in 2009 as the incumbent—which Dem party elders don’t want to see happen. Kaine will have to wait to be rewarded for jumping on the Obama bandwagon so early. (Kaine got aboard so early, he practically helped Obama put the spokes in the wagon’s wheels.)

By the way, who would work the hardest of any Republican in the nation to thwart an Obama-Kaine win? Nope, not John McCain—Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell. So far Bolling has deferred to McDonnell, and will allow the AG to head the GOP’s 2009 ticket. But if Bolling is all of a sudden thrust into the big house at 1 Capitol Square by a departing Vice President Kaine, Bolling might want to re-up for four more years. (It’d be hard go from LG to governor back to LG.) And as the incumbent governor, it might be hard for anyone to keep him from seeking (and attaining) the GOP gubernatorial nomination. McDonnell might have to settle for four more years helming the legal shop in the Pocahontas Building down the hill from Mr. Jefferson’s capitol.

So the day Barack Obama announces his pick for VP, and it’s not Tim Kaine, look for the huge smile on face of Virginia’s top cop. He’ll have just finished a huge sigh of relief.

Virginia once was the mother to three potential vice presidents. Now she has none ...