I havn't written anything political in a few months. I would've written after the Conventions, but I was on vacation when they happened and I wasn't exactly in the best mental health when I got back. I've been doing better lately, and now the debates are in season.

I'm sure many of you watched the debate last night. Since it is about Foreign Policy and the Economy, the latter being extremely important in the last week (I will be writing an article about that in the next few days).

The deabte went along pretty standard in my eyes. Nothing suprising happened: One Republican who talks about cutting taxes and the Democrat talks about the economy like a socialist and badmouths the free market. John McCain badmouthed our government's wasteful spending and Barack Obama badmouthed McCain's support for tax cuts. Now, neither of thse men are as Conservative on the economy as I am: I personally think we should replace the Income Tax with a National Sales Tax (my reasoning will be detailed more in the next article). Obama wants  to raise taxes on the rich (and looking at his spending plan, he might later decide to inclue the middle class as part of the rich) and McCain wants to cut taxes across the board. I like McCain's idea better, seeing as what the liberals call "progressive" taxes create class warfare; and because McCain is not as much of a spender as Bush is, spending cuts will be encouraged more with tax cuts in place. Oh, and not to mention, I noticed Obama trying to interrupt McCain quite a bit on the subject.

When Health Care was brought up, well, similar story. Obama once again showed up his expensive plan to put the federal govenment between my doctor and I. This also involved Obama bashing the free market.

After that, they focused more on Foreign Policy. McCain simply said "I was right: The surge worked" followed by Obama saying "I was right: We shouldn't have gone in". In my eyes, Obama actually does have somewhat of a point. I am angry that we got information from the CIA that Iraq had WMDs. However, I know numerous politicians (including Democrats) who wanted to remove Saddam before the war on terror began. That was in the late 90s, and we were suspicious of his activity then.

Due to my pro-interventionalism ideology, that would make me support an overthrow Saddam and install democracy in Iraq, but I can also understand thinking the invasion was a bad idea. The troop surge in 2007, however, was undisputedly successful; we have lowered the amount of violence significantly and the region is gaining stability. The question of going there in the first place, however, remains an ideological battle.

Overall, I think McCain carried the torch in that debate. I noticed more interruptions and stutters from Obama overall (although McCain had his moments). I saw McCain pull ahead, but not overwhelmingly.

Next up on Thursday are the VP Debates. I can't wait to watch Sarah Palin own Joe Biden in that contest.