Here’s the thing about the debates.

I would legitimately love it if the Republicans offered up a genuine competitor to Barack Obama instead of the millionaire corporate raider whose lack of empathy and tone-deaf approach to matters of national and international import are the only true hallmarks of his platform. I would love it if they could get someone as passionate and intelligent as Obama to debate and discuss the problems our country faces.

I believe in competition. I want the engineers at Google to see what Apple is doing right and wrong on their phones and try to improve on iOS with Android and vice versa. I want automakers, restaurants, grocery stores, farmers, mechanics, builders and retailers to do the same. A competitive business landscape is a healthy landscape for consumers.

I want the Republicans to offer genuine budget solutions besides hand-wavy “tax cuts” for “job creators” that just mean more money is going into the coffers of people who hoard their wealth and don’t actually do anything with it to benefit any economical structure that is not their own. I want Democrats to do something besides offering a watered-down version of the New Deal for fear of losing working-class people who somehow think that Johnny Moneybucks having to pay an extra 3% on his taxes means that they now live in darkest Soviet Russia.

As it stands, the Republican party is no longer a party that offers up any kind of solutions. They only like to point out problems (or things that they perceive as problems) and ensure that the people who can exploit said problems for profit are given a chance to do so. The Democrats, on the other hand, are seemingly afraid to act as progressively as they should. The “left” in this country is anything but when you compare them to our friends in Europe. If I had my druthers, education and healthcare would receive the lions’ share of what we now spend on “defense,” but we’re now far too entangled in international warfare (thanks to a Republican president, notch) that making the shift is impossible, to say the least.

I’m voting for Barack Obama because he hews closest to my own views, even as he has kept Guantonomo open and steps up the use of drone warfare in the Middle East. I’d love for him to face a real competitor from a real Republican. A competitive political landscape is a healthy landscape for voters.