11. If either candidate acknowledges that even a sequester in January would still allow the defense budget to grow after FY 2013, that candidate gets a point for fiscal acumen.

12. If either candidate notes that a defense sequester would leave us at the level of the FY 2007 defense budget, a historic high at the time, give that candidate a point.

13. If either candidate proposes a truly workable way to fix the defense procurement system so we don't pay twice as much as we expected for most of our defense weaponry, defer any point award or take a point away; it is always promised, never delivered.

14. If either candidate acknowledges that even a sequester would reduce the defense budget over 10 years less than every defense drawdown we have executed in the past 60 years, give them a bonus point for honesty and knowledge of budgetary history.

15. If either candidate says they will reform the defense retirement system so serving members can vest a pension before they have served 20 years, but only draw that pension when they reach 57 (like civil servants), give that candidate two bonus points for politically suicidal honesty and leadership.

16. If either candidate says he will cut funding for operations and maintenance spending , forcing the services to reduce the size of the enormous Pentagon "back office," two bonus points for recognizing and being willing to tackle one of the key sources of our over-spending on defense.

17. If either candidate says Pentagon weapons program managers can actually manage a program with 9.4 percent fewer resources than originally budgeted, two more points for honesty. (They do it regularly and know how, without doing damage to the program.)

18. If Obama says the FY 2013 budget request was strategy-driven, based on the strategy laid out by Secretary Leon Panetta in January, take away two points. Strategy is always fiscally constrained. We would not have had a mid-course strategy review if the budgets had not already been going down, forcing such a review.

19. If either candidate acknowledges that we need to plan to do less with less, instead of more with less, two bonus points.

20. If Obama acknowledges that the savings he plans to take from ending the Afghanistan war are non-existent, give him a point for honesty. There are no future savings from ending the war, because the Pentagon has no programmatically driven war budget planned in the future (neither did George W. Bush, by the way). You can't save money from money you never planned to spend in the first place.

And finally, a bonus scorecard: If either candidate acknowledges that we are in a defense drawdown -- because the wars are ending, the deficit must be lowered, the debt restrained, and the economy fixed -- given them a big round of applause for finally recognizing reality, instead of political pandering.

Good luck with this; debits are likely to abound.

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