WASHINGTON — Quick, who was James Monroe's vice president?

Daniel D. Tompkins, of course. (I know that because of the movie "Miracle on 42nd Street," where the Santa Claus-like Kris Kringle says psychiatrists will ask him to prove his sanity by naming the first president — and he adds as extra proof that he even knows Monroe's veep was Thompkins).

The truth is, Americans forget about their vice presidents quickly — even though those often colorful characters were a heartbeat away from the presidency. Americans forget even more quickly about the vice presidential candidates who lost.

So Dick Cheney and John Edwards, while now hot topics in the press, are likely headed toward becoming mere trivia question answers in the future — unless they become president themselves someday.

For those who doubt that, try this quiz:

1. Name the vice presidents in order who served in the past half century, since 1956.

Answer: Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore and Cheney. (If you answered correctly, you are likely a political or news junkie.)

2. Name the major parties' losing vice presidential nominees in the same period.

Answer: Estes Kefauver, Henry Cabot Lodge, William E. Miller, Edmund Muskie, Thomas Eagleton (who withdrew from the 1972 Democratic nomination after disclosures he had electric shock treatment for depression), Sargent Shriver (who replaced Eagleton), Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Lloyd Bentsen, Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp and Joseph Lieberman. (If you answered that correctly, you probably have a Ph.D. in political science.)

3. What incumbent vice president shot and killed a former treasury secretary?

Answer: Aaron Burr. That should have been easy because of stories this week about the 200th anniversary of their July 11, 1804, duel. More trivia: Burr actually tied with Thomas Jefferson in the electoral college presidential vote in 1800 (before separate ballots were cast for president and vice president beginning in 1804), and the House of Representatives elected Jefferson and made second-place Burr his veep.

4. Which vice president was so unpopular that his Democratic Party refused to renominate him to run again with incumbent President Martin Van Buren in 1840 — and even chose not to have any vice presidential candidate at all that year (figuring even nobody was better than him)?

Answer: Richard M. Johnson. His personal life was controversial. For example, he left the capital one summer to manage an inn. Worse, historians say that Johnson, a bachelor, had three mistresses. Worse yet, for those times, was that all of them were black or partially black. One bore him two daughters. Johnson was also the only veep elected by the Senate (in 1837) after failing to win a majority of electoral votes (also because of his controversial lifestyle).