Are all 5 remaining D candidates virtuously equivalent to one another?

[Mairead]

I know 'virtuously' is a strange word to use, but the usual word is 'morally' and I don't want to use that just at this moment in time because its other connotation would intrude and make it sound as though I'm trying to have a go at Kerry. Which I'm not, or certainly not in that way.

What I'm trying to ask is: are all the candidates equivalent in virtue, in goodness of character, in uprightness, in the qualities that go into making a good human being whom one would respect and look up to? I'm not asking whether they are good human beings, but whether they would all assay out, as it were, to the same value, whatever that value might be. If they wouldn't, how would you order them?

In my view, for example, Smirk would assay out to a much lower value than any of the Dems: anyone who mocks a person whom he has just condemned to death lacks empathy and sympathy. People who don't have those qualities assay out relatively poorly on my scales.

So are Dean, Edwards, Kerry, Kucinich, and Sharpton all equivalent in virtuousness? What factors go into your assay?

[JVS]

1. No

[Goldom]

2. No, but

They're all better than Bush!

[bobthedrummer]

3. This independent is with you on that.

ABB.

[corporatewhore]

4. No.iam notgoing tobase answer onsexlife but virtuously by voting record

DK comes out on top Kerry at the bottom by supporting slavery via free trade

[snoochie]

5. I would call it moral courage

I don't know if they're virtuous or not because I can't see into their hearts, and for some reason I want to believe that even if these people do the wrong thing sometimes, that maybe it's not always as craven and willfully wrong as it could be. I know that's probably naive but whatever. Anyway this, to me, means I just couldn't answer that question.

But! Dennis Kucinich has shown that he's willing and able to do the right thing in a situation despite his own personal interests. This, to me, shows that he can do this job without caving in to self-serving behavior. With that much power it's easy to understand how the temptation would be too much to resist for some.

[stickdog]

6. Dean loves his wife, lives in a modest house, and doesn't care for

material things.

Compare and contrast.

[dansolo]

7. I think that Dean and Kucinich are the most virtuous

Kucinich could be thought of as more "noble", while Dean is more pragmatic, but I believe that their ultimate goals are the same.
Edwards is an enigma to me, though I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Virtue is not a word I would use to describe either Kerry or Sharpton.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

8. No

Some support the illegal occupation, some support NAFTA, some support profit in healthcare,some misrepresent their own and other's positions for personal gain, some support keeping the military budget etc. I don't think these and any other similar positions are virtuous.

To rank them I would put Kucinich and Sharpton up top with Dean, Kerry and Edwards all fighting for last.

TWL

[quaker bill]

9. No

The 'politics' of the IWR vote come into play here. Even the slightest intimation that electoral politics had any (even the slightest) role in a decision that resulted and had the potential to result in the death of so many people, is morally repugnant.

(with or without WMD, electoral politics should have had no role in such a decision)

Marital infidelity, even if true, is insignificant by comparison.

DK, Clark, and Dean have stood up for their values and paid a price for it. Edwards seems like a decent guy, but still has the IWR albatross. Although, listening to Edwards, there seems to have been no trace of political expediency in his stand on the issue.

[Mairead]

10. shameless bump