For a state that's easily the richest prize of electoral votes in presidential contests, California has rarely been a contender in recent years for selection of a vice presidential candidates.

One has to go back to 1952, when then-U.S. Rep. Richard Nixon was tapped from California to be Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice presidential running mate on the Republican ticket, for the last time a Golden State native was a major party's pick.

Nixon, who served as Eisenhower's vice president for both terms, used that role as an eventual springboard toward the presidency in 1968, before becoming the first president to resign in office in 1974 during the Watergate scandal.

Two years later, there was discussion that Ronald Reagan, then having only recently left office as California's governor, might take a vice presidential slot on President Gerald Ford's Republican ticket. Reagan ultimately declined, then won the presidency in 1980.

In 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale considered a Californian as his vice presidential running mate on the Democratic ticket: Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Though Bradley would've been the first African-American on a major party ticket, Mondale ultimately made a different history-making choice: U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-N.Y.), the first woman to do so.

Twelve years later, then-California Attorney General Dan Lungren received consideration as a Republican running mate with former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), but was passed over for former Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, of New York.

California's solid status since the early 1990s as a reliable Democratic state has largely eliminated the state as a foraging ground for vice presidential candidates. Democrats don't need a potential vice president from the state to win it, and Republicans have focused their strategy on other states as well.

No prominent California residents received much discussion as a vice presidential candidate in the last two elections. This year, some have said former EBay CEO Meg Whitman and former U.S. Agricultural Secretary Ann Veneman are possible Republican nominees with U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Whitman is slated for a speaking role at early September's Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.