Second Banana Among Second Bananas

Congratulations are in order, after a fashion, to Virginia Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling. Bolling, who is also a candidate for re-election unless (through a cascade of unlikelihoods) current Governor Tim Kaine becomes Vice President of the United States, has been elected vice chairman of the National Lieutenant Governors Association.

According to a news release from the Bolling re-election campaign:

Virginia Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling has been elected Vice Chairman of the National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA). Bolling was elected Vice Chairman of the NLGA at the Association's annual meeting in Buffalo, New York on July 25, 2008. Bolling had previously served as Treasurer of the NLGA and he also serves on the Association's Executive Committee.

"I am honored that my colleagues from across the country have asked me to serve as Vice Chairman of the National Lieutenant Governors Association this year," Lieutenant Governor Bolling said. "I look forward to working with them to continue the good work NLGA has done in the past and help direct the Association's attention toward some of the most important issues currently facing Virginia and other states."

Who knew there was a "National Lieutenant Governors Association"? And why would anybody care?

The office is so infinitesimally important that seven states -- Arizona, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming -- do not even have the office of lieutenant governor. New Jersey belonged to this group until 2005, when voters approved a referendum creating the post. (Given New Jersey's experience with a revolving door on the governor's office [and bedroom], perhaps this was a prudent thing to do.) New Jersey's first lieutenant governor will be elected next year.

Question: If the office of the vice president isn't worth a bucket of warm spit, what is the lieutenant governor's office worth?