Tim Kaine

Tim Kaine jumped to national prominence in 2008, when he was named as a potential running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 after a decade in public service that included stints as the mayor of Richmond, Virginia (1998-2002) and as the state's lieutenant governor (2002-06). Born in Minnesota, Kaine graduated from the University of Missouri in 1979, and added a law degree from Harvard in 1983. He moved to Richmond and practiced law there, specializing in fair-housing issues; he published a law manual on fair housing in 1991. He joined the Richmond City Council in 1994. Kaine has a reputation as a fiscal conservative but a progressive on social issues like education, the environment, and health care. Kaine did not become the VP nominee in 2008, as Obama chose Senator Joe Biden instead.

Extra credit: Kaine, a Catholic, took a year's leave from law school to work as a missionary in Honduras... Kaine married the former Anne Holton in 1984. She is also a lawyer. Her father, Linwood Holton, was governor of Virginia from 1970-74. According to the Virginia state website, Anne is "the only Virginian who has lived in the Governor's mansion as a child and then as an adult. "