John McCain once joked that the vice president’s only duties are to inquire daily about the health of the president, attend the funerals of third-world dictators and break a tie in the Senate.

Well, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin can’t break ties in the state Senate, and likely doesn’t have any relations with totalitarian leaders, making it probably the least powerful executive branch position one could conceive when forming a government.

Also unlike the vice president, the governor doesn’t choose the lieutenant governor — the entire populace elects him, meaning you could end up with a Republican governor and a Democratic lieutenant governor.

Four men are currently vying for the chance to be the Democratic Party’s nomination for lieutenant governor with the primary set for Sept. 14. The candidates are:

1) State Sen. Spencer Coggs of Milwaukee, a longtime member of the Legislature and community activist who has the support of several major unions

2) Assembly Majority Leader Tom Nelson of Kaukauna, who was the sole Democrat to beat a Republican incumbent when he was first elected in 2004.

3) Henry Sanders of Waunakee, a former outreach coordinator for Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who has the support of Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz

4) James Schneider of Gotham, a businessman and former chair of the Sauk County Democratic Party, who is currently self-employed as a business trainer and motivational speaker

There’s pretty much nothing these guys disagree on. All support the Clean Energy Jobs Act, all want to maintain the state’s commitment to the UW System and improve diversity throughout all schools, and all support overturning the state’s ban on gay marriage. They also all call themselves “progressives,” and of course, they all support Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s bid for governor.

The only person to distinguish himself on any single issue is Sanders, who through his preposterously large nine-person campaign staff has been pushing his support for marriage equality more so than any state Democratic candidate in recent memory. He’s also made a point of reaching out to the youth vote through social networking — I cannot tell you how many “Sanders for Marriage Rights” or “Barrett-Sanders for Marriage Rights” ads I’ve seen on Facebook in the past two weeks.

But really, the only thing these candidates only have one thing to bicker about: Who among them can best help Barrett win November’s general election?

This really makes the mere existence of a four-person runoff primary silly. Ideally, the Democratic Party would simply nominate someone and others would drop their campaigns, as we saw happen to Dick Leinenkugel and Terrence Wall after the Republican Party backed Ron Johnson to run against Sen. Russ Feingold.

But, like most things involving Wisconsin politics, a system like that would simply make too much sense to even try to implement, despite the amount of needless campaign spending it would eliminate.

So, we’re left choosing a candidate based on how much they can help Barrett. Each can electrify a certain base, so let’s run through them.

Coggs, who is black, should be able to motivate lower class people in Milwaukee to vote. This is important in a non-presidential election year, when voter turnout is typically much lower.

Sanders seems to be going after an underrepresented and under-voting cohort of society — liberal youths age 18 to 24. Most members of this group voted for Barack Obama and should, theoretically, still be all about the Democratic Party in this election, and therefore willing to vote for Tom Barrett.

Nelson is the only candidate from Northern Wisconsin. He claims that in order to win Wisconsin in a close election year, Democrats must get votes in the Fox River Valley, from Oshkosh to Green Bay. Given that a majority of the state lives in the I-94 corridor from Madison to Milwaukee to Kenosha, I’ve always been suspicious of this assertion, but it’s not without merit.

And Schneider, who seems to be lagging even in a race with no real frontrunner, is from a very rural area of the state, and thinks he too can help in the state’s less populated areas.

I’m not really sure which candidate I’m going to support in the primary, even after I attended a Dane Democrats forum on the race in August. Coggs and Schneider are impressive speakers, Sanders has the potential to rally the liberal base and Nelson has probably the most name recognition in the field. But again, nothing stands out among any of them.

One will emerge victorious, of course. I’d just like to see it be someone who gives Democrats a good reason to vote for them – otherwise, the person listed first on the ballot will get the nod.

Kevin Bargnes ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.