Check the calendar. It's 2008, right?

Turns out a man of mixed race, a woman, and a Latino can all run for the presidency, but a single guy isn't a good catch for No. 2.

Gov. Charlie Crist of FLORIDA -- caps intentional -- is on John McCain's short list for veep. He was one of three candidates who travelled to the senator's Arizona ranch last weekend for interviews.

The rub is the perpetually tanned Crist, his skin at all times approximates the color of well-done bacon, has been single for three decades after a marriage that lasted a matter of months.

"Perennial bachelor" is not a good description when you're potentially courting the religious right.

Guess what the governor, who was born in Altoona, did this week? He got himself engaged after a whirlwind courtship that began last fall.  

To the fetching Carole Rome who has a taste for low-plunging frocks and whose family fortune is in, we kid not, Halloween costumes.

The only downside is that Rome hails from New York and not OHIO --  again, caps intentional -- which is a true blue state. She's divorced from Todd Rome, CEO of Blue Star Jets. Her high-spending ways led to their divorce, according to the Palm Beach Post. 

"I had a large number of homes because, as a general rule, no sooner was a new home built, bought or rented, [Carole] would become dissatisfied with it," he said in divorce documents. "We lived in a succession of no less than five apartments and three houses ... and four vacation houses in the Hamptons."

Fortunately, the veep job comes with the Naval Observatory mansion on Washington, D.C.'s Embassy Row.