You can read my live blog from last night too, but I wanted to add some more sober thoughts after a good night's sleep.  What did we learn about the candidates last night?  Ironically, we learned almost nothing about both, and we simultaneously learned a great deal.  I know, I sound like a politician trying to have it both ways, but allow me to explain (which a politician never does).

We learned nothing about the candidates in that they both pulled out the same tired old lines, the same attacks we've been hearing for weeks, and a lot of ideas, with no real substance behind them.  McCain plans on solving Social Security by sitting down at a table with the other side, but doesn't mention what he'll say at the table.  Somehow, just sitting down will be enough.  Obama, when trying to explain when it is justified to go to war when national security is not at risk ran around in so many circles that he ended up justifying the Iraq War because it was a moral cause that put and end to a dictatorship and tried to spread democracy.

Neither candidate could actually bring themselves to mention anything specific that they'd cut as a result of the current financial crisis.  While their solution to "oil independence" was simply to mention every alternative energy they could think of: nuclear, wind, tide, electric, hybrid... we need them all, and I'll give them to you!  No real content there.

What we did learn was that both candidates are essentially running on the same platform.  They both supported a massive bailout of the financial industry.  John McCain in many ways actually went further to the left than Barack Obama.  John McCain proposed the mass nationalization of all bad mortgages.  He wants to own all your homes.  When they talked about who they would put in charge of the new Treasury program to buy up all this debt, I was dumbfounded about how they talked about the need to appoint that one person the entire country could trust with this mass program.  I was dumbfounded because our nation was founded on the principle that the people should never be put in a position where they need to, or have to, trust a single person with that much power.  And yet there both candidates were talking about that very need.

They both have similar foreign policy goals.  Radley Balko put the difference as, "Four years of lots more small wars versus four years of a couple more big wars."  Yeah, some difference.

They both have similar disjoint and unrealistic energy policies.  They both toss out laundry lists of technologies, and want government to sort out the best one.  John McCain once again actually sounded more liberal in that he said it was up to the government to decide the best one, and then give that to private industry.  Since when has government ever been able to come up with the best solution to anything?  I don't think SynthFuel ever worked out too well.  But Obama sounds about the same on this issue as well.  They both claim that energy independence is possible, and that somehow it will solve our economic woes.  And they think they're qualified to be President?  They obviously don't understand a thing about how markets work.

I'm sure many of my readers have noticed lately that I've been harder on John McCain than Obama.  Please don't confuse that as support for Obama.  My reason for this is that... well... Obama is saying what you'd expect a liberal Democrat to say.  McCain... is saying nothing that a Republican (Conservative or Liberal) should say.  He's saying things you'd expect a liberal Democrat to say, and therefore I think it's more noteworthy.  John McCain is essentially a Democrat who doesn't want to pull out of Iraq.  There's your difference.

What seems to get me more, is that many of my friends on the right side of blogosphere are still cheerleading McCain.  These are smart people.  They know that these proposals are bad, and that they will either not solve our problems, or they will make our current situation even worse.  And yet... they continue to cheerlead for McCain.  I can only assume it's because they have a hope, that once McCain is in office, he'll deviate from his stated proposals and act more Conservative.  I have no idea why they would have that hope based on his previous behavior as a Senator.  I have no reason for such hope.

I also stand by my final thought last night which was, "If both McCain and Obama are both running as Socialists, shouldn't they have faced each other in a Primary instead of the main election?"  Last night's debate convinced me to vote for Bob Barr more than ever.  Someone has to stand for our liberty.