November is election month, and it seems like forever since there was no talk about presidential candidates, the presidential race, the presidential nominees, the presidential debates, the presidential dry cleaning bill...

The news is dominated by the latest polls and catfights between Obama and McCain's camps. Sometimes it feels like a reality TV show: "Who Wants to Be President?" with two major players -- Barack Obama and John McCain.

By the end of August, two sidekicks had joined the game. Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware, became the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, was announced as the Republican VP.

In all the chaos and mud being slung, the cold hard facts are often hidden -- or thrown out entirely. And before their respective tosses into the spotlight, Biden and Palin were relatively obscure. So who are the people who are "a heartbeat away from the presidency"?

Joe Biden

Joe Biden graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and the Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. He was elected to a county council in Delaware in 1970 and served on it until he was elected to the United States Senate in 1972 when he was 29 years old. A senator for 36 years, he is the sixth-longest serving member of the current senators.

He is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He also led a Congressional effort to end genocide in Darfur and has had a hand in crafting many pieces of crime and narcotics legislation during his time in the Senate.

Biden previously ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and even entered this election's race, running for about a year before he dropped out in January. He has earned less criticism than Palin so far and received more public favor in polls after the vice-presidential debate.

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin received a journalism degree from the University of Idaho in 1987. Before her election as governor of Alaska in 2006, she served two terms on the Wasilla City Council and two terms as the mayor of Wasilla. She was the youngest and first female Alaskan governor.

She is chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commissions and the National Governors Association Natural Resources Committee. She also has served as the chair of the Alaska Conservation Commission and, while mayor of Wasilla, was president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

Palin has passed important pieces of legislation in her term, including an overhaul of the state's ethics laws and a competitive process to construct a gas pipeline. Until she began campaigning for McCain, Palin was well liked in Alaska with an 89 percent approval rating -- one of the highest in the nation.

She has come under fire for "switching positions" and being less experienced than Biden, but 84 percent of vice-presidential debate viewers thought that she did better than they expected in the debate.

Although an election is not based on the vice presidential candidates, they should be a factor in voters' decisions. They are, after all, the ones who will step in should anything happen to the president.

Biden and Palin are both good players in the race. All that remains is to see who will emerge with the second-highest position in the nation.