BY ERIK JAY

Everyone I've heard talk about a “previous life” claims to have been a princess, a pharaoh, an Olympian athlete, or some other A-list player. I've never heard anyone say she was a slave or he was a convicted embezzler.

 Everybody, everywhere, loves a winner and wants to be one. That's what makes it so hard to understand the pathology of anyone content to be an Also Ran, a Runner Up, or Second Rate. But if you think about it, there's a spectacle every four years in which people actually compete to be Numero Dos – the "race" for Vice-President. It's shaping up to be a doozy in 2008.I’m going to stick with the Democrats for now – just because they're a fun bunch and way less depressing to consider than the GOP crew. Now, Hillary Clinton is the consensus front-runner at this (early) point, and if she carries on through to the convention and thence to the White House,there's going to be a real problem. See, she comes with a built-in Number Two. Don't forget that when Bill first ran in 1992, he promised a "two-fer" if you voted for him: you'd get Bill plus his smart, perky wife. There’s no way it will be any different if Hillary becomes President. Bill will be, well, co-President, which doesn't leave much room for the Veep. 

A winning loser

 So, who among the current crop of Dem presidential contenders has the requisite mediocrity to be, not Hillary's Number Two, but a mere piece of political furniture? Let's take a look... 

First, there’s Barack Obama. Working for an old white couple from Arkansas? Right! I don't think so.

Okay, John Edwards. He was a Veep candidate before when he ran as (get this) a Number Two to a former Number Two. But a mannequin for the Clinton White House? He spends way too much on grooming and fashion to be locked away in a vestibule somewhere or shuttled around the world to funerals. Bill Richardson, then. Nah, he fancies himself a mover and a shaker and a salsa dancer. He’s much too hip and happening to don a bland blue suit and blend into the background of Clinton Redux. The fact is, the Clinton Veep won’t be one of the current candidates. If Hillary keeps building momentum, she will get a Veep search committee together to weed out all the axe murderers and pedophiles, solicit the input of her core constituencies (academia, GLBT groups, Bolsheviks) and come up with a safe, sane, logical, reasonable, geographically balanced, and dependably servile governor or Senator or “American Idol” finalist. Hey, there’s something to consider ­– the “American Idol” phenomenon. On that TV show, people who come in second are considered winners. That’s positively un-American!