I am sitting on the fence, watching all of these threads...

[here_is_to_hope]

...about everyones favorite in the race to the Presidency...
And I am so turned off by the attack threads...
I like Hillary.
I like Edwards.
I like Obama.
I even sorta like Biden.
I admire Dodd.
Kucinich is great too.

But if the supporters of these candidates are going to attack one another's candidates for the next 14 months till the primaries.... :eyes:
Much further with sugar than salt.

I dont like reading attacks against our own.
:-(

[Mz Pip]

1. Yeah, it's gonna be a long season

It was pretty much the same in 2004. Lots of attacks. It's the only time I've ever used the "ignore" feature. I didn't have a lot of people on ignore, just a couple but they were the most venomous.

Politics is one ugly contact sport.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Buzz Clik]

2. You'll be saddened to hear that it only gets worse from here.

It won't be long before The Management starts instituting special rules to control the chaos. Last time, they had to create safe havens for fans of a given candidate where they could discuss their favorite without being shat upon by dissenters.

It will get to the point of pathetic, and then they'll kick it up another notch.

[Nite Owl]

3. Know what you mean

I'm still undecided, though leaning Edwards. It really bothers me to have our candidates denigrated by our own and it also bothers me to have candidates pushed at me with groupies coming to their defense, it has a negative effect. Honest criticism is worthy of discussion but no name calling, whomever is voted for our candidate has a hell of job to do after these two terms, they need all of us.

[Fovea]

4. There are one or two I actively dislike

and one I even would have to search my soul to vote for, but i don't see a sane repubic party candidate, not even Paul.

I happen to love public works and mass transit, so a libertarian is not my bag.

There are two candidates I trust implicitly and the rest I think could do a great job with the right sort of administration behind them.

Ok, one of them is a plagiarist, and wow I think I would prefer to vote for pick-pocket, prostitute, or card sharp first. But if that person were the nominee, I would still vote for them.

The enormity of the Repug maladimistration is such that it smooths out a lot of minor faults and peccadilloes in the Dem field.

[natrat]

5. great , when mit gets in because of some wierd colusion we don't now understand don't go crying

[TwilightZone]

6. The '04 primary season was pretty brutal around here....

I don't recall it being this contentious quite this early, but it may have been. Toward the end of the primary season, it was utterly venomous.

It certainly is going to be a long 14 months, and I'm finding myself spending less and less time here. At the end, I can only hope that we can overcome the primaries to fully support the eventual nominee. Any of them are light-years better than the best Republican alternative, and this is one incredibly important election cycle.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. There's one or two I can't stand, but...

I ain't sayin' who. Just no point in starting fights over them.

Most here won't get into the fights, but there are enough here who do to make the place pretty uncomfortable. Last time around it was like a tag team match with flurries of attacks from some quarters and the interminable defenses and denials-- "Who us? It's the (insert candidate here) people who start this crap."

Most of the worst offenders have taken off to other places, and some of those other places have disappeared (apparently giving evidence that they were shitheads after all) but there will be enough still here, and enough new arrivals, to continue circling the wagons but aiming the wrong way.

[RFKJr4PRES]

8. We need to attack the issues,not the candidates

We need to decide what we want in a leader first, then look for the candidate that meet the criterion.

I want someone who could see through the lies about Iraq from the very beginning. I could see what they were up to before they even attacked Iraq, when Bush said 'they wouldn't let the inspectors in' and the US was spying on the UN members arm twisting for votes. I want a candidate that is at least as smart as me.

I want someone who is not lying now, about the threat of Iran, the 'war on terror', the idea that we cannot remove profit from the health care industry. I want someone who will stand up to the corporate control of our government. I only know one such candidate at this time so I have chosen accordingly, based on my ideals first, not the 'personalities' being forced on us.

[PATRICK]

10. We need to agree on

the future of progressive issues and the obliteration of the dangers that make our cake recipes for dandy legislation just like those unused cook books lining our dusty shelves. There is a legitimate question that the future president will mire the future in a discredited wrongly evaluated and sold out past. Last time we had fears about that that stretched to all top candidates, including Edwards and stopped at Dean(about whom the misgivings took a bit different form). Distrust was pretty rampant then during shorter season when only Dean broke the stale air of centrist politics. This is till hardly the time to demand a rapid purging or transformation of the party or wage war with a DLC that would prefer fighting us than the the GOP.

Yet we can agree on what we want and measure out our misgivings accordingly and fairly because still, in the present state of party leadership, populism and progressivism is fringe and wealth is center. I may argue that the one who moves toward the "fringe"- or reality that can survive the crises of this world- is the one to receive the most support and all candidates the same support dependent on response to that help and that pressure to do what is right. That is the same for every movement, labor, civil rights. You can pick your ideal champion and best committed candidate and best shot and then deal with the actual choice dependent on issues and delivery. The only punishment must be raising up more good candidates outside the money interests to improve the future, not abetting a GOP fascist revival. To those ends campaign reform and media reform are key. Just as the "left" achieved important party building by getting Dean as DNC chair, the future must move over and beyond whoever is President and whatever they achieve.

I think we know quite a bit more about the candidates than the average citizen than to engage in hero worship or spitting contests. We also know more about truly key issues and the crimes threatening all realities. We should agree to get our act together and use what we criticize in individual candidates to frame our influence(if any) upon them once they are president. And how to best make THAT happen, because I have seen no wonder messiah who is going yo singlehandedly brush away election perils much less the difficult twin tasks of undoing damage and meeting onrushing calamities. Weakening ourselves by fighting each other shows we are part of the same grand problem afflicting all of law abiding suckers in America. The American Revolution was all about coping with that weird disunity and sometimes just hanging on.

In the heat of the campaign, bias or error will produce critiques and responses will answer in kind with heat. It is important as well to develop a little hide and humor to these foibles and have confidence in each other underneath the competition, even the errant absurdities. If the sniff and retreat response is going to castrate all critical debate it too is yet another weak display of silliness in the ongoing catastrophes unfolding about us.

When you feel the need to punch something, deflect the topic to Nader instead. Just kidding.

[OHdem10]

9. I can understand what you are saying but attacking

the opponent is what makes politics interesting.
No attacks means no one wins.