Last night, I watched the Democrat Presidential debate, brought to me courtesy of CNN. It was a legitimate effort on my part. I have not completely ruled out voting for one or two of the candidates and, in the interest of fairness, I want all candidates to have an opportunity at getting my vote. Here are some of the things that I learned.

-- They all will raise my taxes substantially. Of course, they didn’t say this. It was disguised as “increasing revenues” and “rolling back tax cuts”, but anyone with an ounce of independent intellect knows what that means. I am still extremely disappointed in Barak Obama’s claim that he can provide government-funded health insurance to all Americans by simply rolling back the Bush tax cuts on people making over $250K a year. Either he is lying, or he has absolutely no grasp on how much socialized medicine will cost the government. Come one, Senator, you’re a better man than that. Just tell us it’s going to cost us an exhorbitant amount and let us decide from there whether it’s worth it. Hillary wants to increase gov’t revenues, but she didn’t mention that federal revenues under the Bush tax plan are at record highs, maybe she doesn’t know, or maybe she’s being deceitful.

--When asked about earmarks, everyone said they wanted to end them. This was odd, especially since many of the candidates voted for the Iraq war funding bill that included billions of dollars of earmarks for things like peanut farmers and dairy ranchers.

-- Hillary is becoming as slick as her husband on certain issues. When asked if military action should be used on Iran, she said she wasn’t going to engage in hypotheticals. When asked if she would kill Bin Laden if given the chance, she answered yes. Biden said that he would take out Iran’s nuke if it was on a warhead and poised to launch, which basically means that he would be too late in acting, and would allow Iran to develop thermonuclear war capabilities so long as they didn’t attach them to a missile and place the missile on a launching pad. I guess Senator Biden isn’t concerned about Iran giving this technology to terrorists.

--Edwards is pathetic. He’s an ambulance chaser. I have a hard time respecting anyone who actually votes for the guy.

--There were a lot of promises for government funded entitlements, with no detail about how they would pay for them. I heard things like four years of college for one year of federal service, more funding for retirement, more funding for education (including a minimum salary for teachers, regardless of performance), more funding for health care, government funded daycare and preschool, ending “corporate welfare”, repealing NAFTA, tougher emissions standards, etc. There was a lot, and it all sounded like more socialism to me. Bill Richardson was probably the least socialist, but even he had some worrisome ideas.

-- Then there was Darfur. Many candidates agreed that American troops should be used there (except Hillary, of course, who again said she wasn’t going to deal with hypotheticals). They also said this should be done even if the UN fails to act. They also said regime change is appropriate for the area. That’s when something donned on me. The Left isn’t against the unilateral invasion of a sovereign nation for the purpose of regime change and restoring human rights. According to last night’s debate, they all seem to favor it. They seem to only oppose it if a Republican is leading the charge. I’m not exactly sure what Hillary stands for, if anything.

All in all, no one earned my vote last night, and when you couple that with the GOP debates that I’ve seen, so far I have no idea who I’m voting for. I’ve yet to hear what Fred Thompson or Newt Gingrich says. Maybe someone will emerge who is worthy of receiving my vote for President.