We're starting a new game today

I have both strived and worked quite hard over the years to be fair, as balanced as I can, consistent, and most importantly to me, objective. There's a lot of talk that swirls around these terms and definitions, particularly during heated election campaigns. This year is clearly no exception.

Keeping that foremost in mind, we seem to have before us the first Presidential campaign for which the nomination of a Vice-Presidential candidate may be a factor in the minds of voters.

So let's play a game with this.

Let's keep tabs of what each of the VP candidates is known for doing, and see how many times they each do this from the end of the conventions, which we all know was 8 days ago, officially, through election day.

Joe Biden is known for putting his foot in his mouth. His biggest gaffe was in 1987 when he expropriated the family history of British Labor leader Neil Kinnock's as his own. This past week, Biden twice reverted to form. In Columbia, Missouri on Tuesday, Biden asked a paraplegic state official to stand in order to be recognized. Good 'ol Joe, bringing out the best in himself. He worked to recover, but this is the Joe those in Delaware and Washington know. And on Wednesday, at a town meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire, he was asked a question about Hillary Clinton. In extolling the virtues of New York's junior Senator, Biden closed out his praise for Hillary with this line. "Quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me."

I suspect the Obama folks were happy to see Joe muddle an issue that they had thought resolved three weeks prior, and were happier to see that this didn't become a full blown issue. But it does get to 2 the number of gaffe's Biden has made in this campaign.

As for Palin, she is not very well known outside of Alaska, certainly not known prior to her nomination by John McCain. And as Governor as one of the two most distant and geographically isolated American states, there are different standards for what the base issues are, and for how the base responds. But as a candidate for office, being prepared to be able to take over as President 'in a heartbeat' is something that each Vice-Presidential nominee must be able to do. And in being prepared, and being capable, they must be able to convey trust, as well as candor, with the American people.

Since the convention has ended, we can tabulate the following mis-statements to Sarah Palin, a total that continues to grow each day, particularly now that we have the opportunity to see her in interviews, and no longer exclusively in controlled and well mapped political settings.

For one, Palin continues to state that she opposed the infamous bridge to nowhere. Old-timers might call this a flip-flop, as she campaigned for Governor in 2006 in support of the bridge, came around to oppose the bridge upon election as Governor, but continues to claim credit for killing the project, although the project had lost critical support well before she reversed course. So that's one.

Palin has stated on several occasions over the past week that he son is an Army infantryman fighting in Iraq. On September 11, 2008, her son's Army Stryker unit was deployed to see duty in Iraq, though it won't arrive in country for some time. Perhaps Palin is being pro-active in support of her son, but it was not correct to say he is fighting in Iraq when he had not left Alaska.

In her interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC News, the interview that aired on World News on Thursday evening, Palin claimed to be unfamiliar with the Bush Doctrine, suggested offering support for Israel for whatever it though was correct militarily with regard to Iran, and went beyond the role of NATO in calling for defending the rights of nations against Russia. Some of this might be news for the McCain campaign, which knows, and has disagreements with the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption,; which clearly supports Israel as America's prime ally in the Middle East, but doesn't support a unilateral Israeli military operation against Iran; and with regard to NATO, doesn't put the United States further ahead of the other member states of this multi-national peace keeping organization.

So for those of you keeping score at home, it's two bonehead comments by Biden, five out of her league mistakes by Palin.

These numbers are only sure to rise.

Action, anyone?