Why can't people just leave JK alone??!!?? He's not even running in this primary.

[beachmom]

I just went over to GDP and regretted it. Kerry is being totally TRASHED, and I just don't see the point. I mean, agree or disagree with his choice for the presidential primary, there is NO REASON why this vitriol should be aimed at him. He has taken his lumps for his IWR vote, and he probably will not be POTUS, something he always wanted. Yet he stays in and fights the good fight. So what does he get for that? Hate from the so-called "Dem base". It is really discouraging to me.

[louloulou]

1. It is hard

But you have to take a step back and remember that is actually not the dem base. You could be listening to someone who is only into anarchy for example. I think the dem base has gotten to a point where they are able to embrace JK again, because they have had time to heal from the loss and realize it wasn't all his fault and what an amazing president he would have been.

DK is more reflective of a broader base, I think. And I've been pleasantly surprised at how much more welcoming and protective they have been as of late. Shoot, maybe someday they'll even admit to liking him. :-)

Step away from the venom, you're too special of a person to let them steal away a moment of your life, just because they are idiotic and completely lacking anything more productive to do than trash a real American hero.

[Democrafty]

4. Perfectly stated!

I want to echo this sentiment: "Step away from the venom, you're too special of a person to let them steal away a moment of your life, just because they are idiotic and completely lacking anything more productive to do than trash a real American hero."

[Inuca]

6. Another echo of the same beautifully put sentiment here n/t

[beachmom]

8. Thanks for your kind words, lou. I forgot to mention that

this stuff was happening at the same time:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/5/94627/79969/357/450176

And this:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/2/4/12839/33827/402#c402

(in the Senator's own diary)

I mean, my senators are Saxby Chambliss (the guy who smeared Max Cleland) and Isaacson (Some GOPer I know nothing about), and these idiots are trying to primary out Kerry?

I just thought Kerry was really great last night. I actually thought he gave a better speech than Obama (well, this was just my preference. Obama was great). And then to read the crap just brings me down. But you are right, that I shouldn't let the bastards get me down.

[Mass]

10. At least one of these guys works for O'Reilly and his diaries are posted on his website.

I do not know the other one, but O'Reilly has some supporters and some are going to post. This is going to happen.

[politicasista]

2. Same here

I knew the IWR vote was going to be a problem. DD (Dear Dad) was saying that he thinks that's the reason why Uncle Ted has been so happy supporting Obama. He voted against this from the start despite all the haters that laughed at him. No mention of Kerry though, and having to listen to the GOPer that was supporting Obama calling C-SPAN after the Oprah/Michelle/Caroline/Maria rally didn't help either. It was overheard that "Hillary would have the same problem that John Kerry did, which was having voted for the war." sigh.

[Mass]

3. I put the OP on ignore and I felt a lot better. This morning was really bad.

A clearly racist and flame bait thread was started and it took more than 200 posts (most of them from people I had on ignore) before it was blocked by the mods. I think some Clinton people are having a meltdown. The hate directed at Kerry is just a sign of that (just as I saw a few insane threads directed at Wilson yesterday from Obama people, to be honest). Simply primary craziness, for the most part.

Ignore is really my best friend these days for me.

And also Kerry has been one of the great surrogates of Obama, these last few weeks, so he will be the target of all these nuts.

[Inuca]

5. I saw some of that

upseting, but mostly because it is sad to see all these people being complete idiots. As several of you have posted in another thread, to see and hear the way JK fights for Obama, heals many of the wounds. Mine, and much more mportantly I guess his as well.

Bottom line: let teh idiots be idiots, it's a state they seem to enjoy.

[YvonneCa]

7. I saw that...

...beachmom. FWIW, here's what I think:

I think there are +/- three groups that attack JK.

1. People who still hate him from 1971...mostly Republicans. They are my age or older. They won't ever change and are best ignored. Nothing we do or say or give them to read will change their minds.

2. People who attack him because it helps them. If they connect a popular Democrat with an unpopular one (Clinton, Kerry)...their opinion, not mine :) ... they can damage the Democratic Party. These guys are the 'swiftboaters'. They don't take facts, and information won't change their position, because they already know the truth...Kerry's a good guy. These are the ones I think we need to go after with great CIVILITY. Not because giving facts will change THEM, but because we need to turn around their followers who will perpetuate this behavior.

3. Democrats who got mad in 2004, because they SO wanted Kerry to make things better and they feel let down. Some don't know what we know. They were really hurt. Many of them believe as we do about our country. I think we need to (as Obama says) show empathy to these people. They will take information if we present it respectfully.

JMHO, but I think it's important to channel our energy toward those we can influence. Sometimes the most outrageous are # 1's...and they just make my blood pressure go up. :7

[beachmom]

9. Thanks, Yvonne. I guess it depends on the day. Some days I am

up for the fight (or easily make the decision to walk away), and other days I cannot as easily let it roll off of me. I guess I should just stay away from GDP.

[YvonneCa]

17. Same here...

... :) That's why we all make a good team! :7

[TayTay]

11. Because they cannot argue rationally.

They fling the BS around because they are incapable of having any other kind of discussion. They are beaten. The rest is a long round of "Your Mama Wears Army Boots" in lots of colorful expressions.

It is meaningless and meant only to hurt you because they are incapable of any other kind of discourse. You good people are each worth 100 of these know-nothings. At the very least.

Try not to let it bother you. These naysayers are the dregs of DU and do not represent any significant portion of the rational peole at all. They want to hurt you with idiotic arguments that are subjective, vitriolic and mean. don't let them.

[MBS]

12. It is a question I ask often, and have trouble answering.

especially when I saw the response I saw today at Harvard Law School. The commenters here all have some good explanations, but, in my gut, I will never get it. Maybe , in addition to everything people have said here, it also has something to do with the fact that politics have been so divisive, and so rotten, for so long (25 years and counting. .) that people just can't tell the difference between charlatans and the Real Thing anymore.

[politicasista]

13. Also....

Take TayTay's advice. Stay out of GDP and the other big forums. Hang out in here or the Obama group, or mingle with fellow Obama supporters. :)



Sorry for the post above. I know it's a Debbie Downer.

[fedupinBushcountry]

14. They are not the Dem base

The Dem base are people that appreciate everything that JK does as is in this pic in San Jose this past weekend.




The naysayers live in lalaland, we do not. :-)

[Democrafty]

15. My contention has always been that there are two kinds of people:

people who know they love JK, and people who don't know it. I noticed this at the SJ event. People who weren't that excited to see him were out of their minds with admiration within minutes.

So if you think of the naysayers as slow learners, they don't seem so scary :)

[MBS]

22. good perspective! n/t

[Island Blue]

16. Those folks don't seem to be able to leave JK alone either.

That's really an amazing photo, with all faces pointed toward one person. JK. I'm guessing that's never happened to EOR before.

[JI7]

18. fuck them, they are trash to me

[politicasista]

19. Amen!

:applause:

[politicasista]

20. And now he, Kennedy, are being semi-dissed at

Obama's blog for not helping him win MA or CA and saying that their endorsements didn't matter much. sigh.

I am going to continue to stay out of GDP because of possible gloating by bashers and or naysayers.

[karynnj]

23. That is just the result of too high expectations

The reality was that this super Tuesday was designed to guarantee a HRC victory. It was impossible to run 21 primary campaigns simultaneously as he had in the earlier ones. In many of these big states the party infastructure was nearly 100% behind Clinton. Prosense has a thread that shows Obama's national percents and you can see that after nearly a year of campaigning, he was still significantly behind HRC and the rate he was gaining at would have left him pretty far behind. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4424122&mesg_id=4424790

What is NOT shown is that Kerry's endorsement was at a very critical point - and the HRC people on DU know that and they even said it yesterday in blasting Kerry. It changed the manufactored story of her "upset" defeat of Obama in NH - a state that she had been 20 points ahead in for nearly a year before Iowa. NV was clearly already set up and I doubt the dirty politics would have showed without that burst of support. (Not to mention, Obama would have had to directly deal with the B. Clinton lies himself.)

No endorser can (or even should) be able to win a state for the candidate. What Kerry did was help reframe who Obama was, raise money and to provide considerable defense. Obama was behind by over 20 points in CA, MA, and NJ before the endorsements and efforts of the MA Senators. The Clinton plan to clinch on February 5th was very close to a sure thing. Obama did very very well to avoid that and to be competitive into the rest of the states. (A shift from routinely being up 30% to winning by 15% is a VERY major impact - the 30% down shows how weak the Obama campaign there was before January. This was not Iowa where they were well-co-ordinated.)

Now is a time of spin. It was NOT a huge victory for the Clintons to essentially tie Obama. The NYT and other papers have headlines of a McCain sweep and that the Democrats are still battling it out. That was the reasonable best result for Obama. What will be important now - and a test for Obama - is to keep the energy going and to get his people to see this as a victory that a month ago seemed steep. He needs to project confidence and enthusiasm now. The states in the next round are states that Obama can win. This really is not where people expected this race to be - even in December 2003. Super Tuesday was designed as the ultimate firewall where the Clinton media and party connections would give her an unbeatable advantage. That his hopes are still alive is huge. This morning, I'm hearing more of that on the TV and in the papers.

As to one area of idiotic nastiness on DU - the NYT says that in states like Oklahoma, the Edwards withdrawal helped Clinton. So - if anyone threatened Edwards, it wasn't either of the MA Senators.

[Luftmensch067]

24. Excellent, sensible comment, Karynnj!

I think this is a good way to look at it and to talk about it to others (the ones who are actually listening!) Thanks to you and to ProSense for the great graphic (recced!)

[MBS]

25. YES n/t

[politicasista]

28. Good observation

One rule is don't feed the concern trolls, even if they say that the endorsements made his "consituents" turn against him, Kennedy, and Patrick, and Uncle Ted being more of a "hinderance" instead of a help (i.e. liberal label).

[Inuca]

36. About those too high expectations

I wonder if they can actually be reined in. I know about the generally accepted CW about defeating the expectations, how important it is to the post-election spin, how it affects what the media will say, etc. Obama and his camp are gong through the movements of playing the expectations down, as they are supposed to. But in his specific case, because of how different his whole campaign is, the "movement", the whole sense of unusual excitement, much of it real, partly media-induced, I think that the irrational expectations were and will continue to be much more difficult to keep in check. I saw it in myself (sample of one, I know, but based on some of your comments, I think that I can include quite a few of the people here in the sample as well). My first reaction after Tuesday was one of disillusionment, why didn't he do better? I had to wait for the next day, and think things over with a slightly less effervescent mind, to see that the results were not only good, but verging on stunning (special thanks to JK for making this word an often used part of my everyday vocabulary :-)). Bottom line: I think that the expectations game and the implied perceptions will continue to hurt, hopefully only marginally and without affecting the eventual result.

[karynnj]

37. You definately got my reaction right -

Tuesday was like a rollercoaster ride. One thing I did during the day was to go with 3 other people volunteering for the Obama people to the town green of the county seat and waved Obama signs. Mentally, I was ignoring the echoes of a similarly unseasonably warm November 2004 when I was with a bigger mob of Democrats doing the same thing. What was clear was that there really is a movement. It was so cool seeing the number of people who honked, cheered, and smiled. To be fair, we went there because the Clinton people were already there as they were using the county headquarters, while we were running out of 3 houses in the county. (Al candidates were invited to use the headquarters - this was not unfair.)

It was that real positive feeling and watching the incredible Boston event the evening before on CSPAN that against all logic, wanted to see an amazing - not really predicted - OBAMA victory - in states where she had really spent more time setting up the ground work and had the city machines. Then it started out so amazingly in GA. It was irrational but I was really disappointed with the NJ and MA results even though they were likely better than the campaign expected. Obama made a nice comment when he spoke of the fact that even ? weeks ago, it was thought that Super Tuesday would be it, but he was still standing.

Looking to get a link for something else on Kerry's blog - I found they had this incredible analysis that Super Tuesday was designed for and by the Clinton machine. It is amazing that it is still a race.
http://www.johnkerry.com/blog

You are right that it is an expectations game and notice what the media is doing now. The expectation is being set that Obama will win ALL the contests in the next few weeks. ALL? That means one HRC win means she wins - if you believe the pundits, who were all wrong in 2004 and have been wrong - and very wrong at that for the last 3 years! In 2000, I knew Bush I had gone over the cliff when he called the Democrats "Bozo and Ozone man", today the NYT has left reality when they have referred to Obama's supporters as cult-like. This from the people who for 3 years have used many phrases to call JK uninspiring - now apparently inspiring is BAD because Obama is far more inspiring than HRC. They also ignore the real cult like behavior of the NOW chapter people who have called Kennedy anti-woman because he is not behind a specific woman. I bet he wouldn't endorse Dr Rice either.

[Inuca]

38. As a side note

whenever the MA results were flashing on the TV I was swearing, mentally or otherwise. And when I was seeing the NJ results, I was thinking of you :-). By the time CA came up, I was too emotionally exhausted to swear much.

[JI7]

21. many Hillary supporters hate Kerry and love Bush

most famous of all being her husband

[rox63]

26. A thread here that is full of Kerry haters

Needs some JK love: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4435498

[politicasista]

27. I don't understand...

why people complain that Kerry isn't being statesman like (by remaining neutral like some others), but does a statesman like thing in defending his candidate. Some of the repsonses are baffling from people (i.e. that he took a lot of their money and didn't count the votes in OH like promised, fraudelent, etc). that used to say good (I mean good) things about him.


Thanks for the heads up. Weird. :(

[rox63]

31. I've just seen a few more JK-bashing threads pop up in GDP

Why are these people dissing JK? As if he's not allowed to have an opinion or support his candidate? As an American citizen, isn't he free to support the candidate of his choice? Do they also think HRC's endorsers should STFU? I doubt it. ARGH!!! :banghead:

[politicasista]

32. Exactly. Why are they dissing him?

Everything gets brought up from "taking my money and not counting the votes" (I hate that so much cause it makes it seem like Kerry is some kind a fraud. :() to "loser" and other name calling rants. I don't see anyone else getting this kind of venom. I agree, should other people that have endorsed STFU too? :banghead:

[JI7]

29. they are angry he disagreed with that media whore andrea mitchell

hahhaha, fuck them. and andrea mitchell.

[politicasista]

30. LOL!

:rofl:

[beachmom]

33. Has anyone found the Evan Bayh trash threads?

That is what is such crap. That they pick on JK above all others.

And Barbara Boxer endorsed Clinton. It would not even occur to me to trash her.

[politicasista]

34. Bingo! n/t

[karynnj]

35. And as to effectiveness of endorsements,

didn't both Clintons PUBLICLY endorse John Kerry in 2004 at the convention if not before. This was Bill's country, why didn't Kerry win!
Obama NOT Kerry or Kennedy was on the ballot.

It makes as much sense as the claim that the people of MA are little puppets that Kerry and Kennedy can control. Consider that we here spoke of what if JK endorses a candidate we didn't like.

[JI7]

40. Democrats lost control of Congress under Bill Clinton

he wasn't able to unite enough people to support a common agenda for the people. it's like people voted for him but were not sure enough about him that they also voted for a Republican Congress to control his power.

i remember after Kerry's botched joke incident a lot of Clinton people were hoping Democrats would lose the elections just so they could blame Kerry.

[Inuca]

39. Oh, but Bayh is such a nice & quiet man n/t