Because one of them will be the 18th lieutenant governor of the great state of Florida, we offer our sincerest condolences to Rod Smith and Jennifer Carroll.

As Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp’s unsuccessful bid for the Republican attorney general nomination shows, the position of lieutenant governor is not always a ticket to success in Florida politics.

While Kottkamp had the additional problem of running in a Republican primary not long after his boss, Gov. Charlie Crist, decided to abandon the GOP to run without party affiliation, history shows that Florida’s lieutenant governors have rarely found political success after their stints as the No. 2 in the executive branch.

The position has an odd history. During the first years of statehood in the period before the Civil War, the state did not have a lieutenant governor. It was created in 1865 as part of the Reconstruction constitutional reforms -- but was in existence for less than 25 years.

Despite serving in the Confederate Navy, William Kelly, a longtime legislator from Pensacola and a hero of the Mexican War, was elected Florida’s first lieutenant governor in 1865 under Gov. David Walker. Walker and Kelly rose to power under President Andrew Johnson, who was looking to appoint moderate leaders to power in the South as opposed to abolitionists or rabid Confederates. While Kelly would serve on the bench after Reconstruction, his stint as lieutenant governor, which ended in 1868, was his moment in the sun.

Kelly was followed by William Henry Gleason, a carpetbagger from Wisconsin, whose advocacy for the freed slaves brought him into conflict with his moderate Republican boss, Gov. Harrison Reed. After one of the many impeachments of Reed, Gleason even declared himself governor -- only to find that most of the state government sided with Reed. Needless to say, Reed and his allies quickly removed Gleason, who spent the rest of his life out of politics, but staying in Florida to develop land and promote hotels and an agricultural college.

The controversial Reed had two more lieutenant governors -- Edmund Weeks and Samuel Day -- and they proved somewhat better than Gleason. Weeks, who was appointed by Reed, served a year and the Senate did not recognize him. Senators sat in his chair, presiding over the body and walked out when he attempted to preside. Weeks should have gotten the hint that they did not want him as lieutenant governor when the Senate debated a motion to arrest him. Instead, Weeks claimed to be lieutenant governor even when Day was elected to the position. Reed and the courts sided with Day. While Day served out the rest of his term until 1873, that was the high point of his political career. Weeks would represent Leon County in the Legislature and would lose a congressional election. Like his old boss Reed, Weeks would be appointed to an office in Florida by President Benjamin Harrison.

Next up would be Union army veteran Marcellus Stearns who is more prominent than most of the other 19th century lieutenant governors because he became governor when Ossian Hart passed away. Stearns would be the last Republican lieutenant governor as the Democrats returned to power after the sordid and still controversial 1876 elections when the Sunshine State was one of the key battlegrounds in the election between eventual winner Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden.

When Redeemer Democrat George Drew took power in 1877, he had Noble Hull, a Confederate veteran and former state legislator, as lieutenant governor. Quickly tiring of his position, Hull resigned it and ran for Congress the next year. While he was initially declared the winner, Jacksonville Republican Horatio Bisbee would dispute the election and serve the last three months of the term after a successful appeal. Hull would remain active in Jacksonville politics as an assistant postmaster and clerk of the Duval County courts.