All the bickering

[RDANGELO]

There are too many petty accusations between the presidential supporters that don't really influence anybody and make the board look bad.

[Adelante]

1. Most def nt

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. I disagree

The only candidate I see actively and consistently talked up is Dennis Kucinich. Avowed supporters of other candidates spend a great deal of their time engaging in "petty accusations" of other candidates rather than talking up their own candidate. That tells me that their own choice has little to recommend. I find this information quite important in casting my vote.

Edited for clarity.

[mtnsnake]

3. No. What makes the board look bad is DU'ers slandering Hillary worse than the rightwing nutjobs do!

On the right day, anyone perusing the board could take a quick peek at it and think they ended up on the Free Republic...or worse, judging by the amount of lies, spin, vitriol, and outright bullshit spewn about the Clintons!

[Adelante]

4. I think it goes back and forth, though I agree Clinton gets the worst of it

What bothers me from *all camps* is the extraordinary efforts to streeeeetch the truth or seriousness of a situation to the point that it's a hurricane of negativity having little to do with the original criticism. Criticism of any candidate is fine by me as long as it's based on the truth.

[mtnsnake]

7. Nicely said, Wes

As long as it's truthful, as you say, I don't have a problem either, but there have been so many flat-out lies that it gets to be such a waste of time correcting the same lies over and over. Another thing that's really bothersome is when quotes are taken out of context, or only one sentence is quoted for a specific situation, when the entire paragraph would've made all the difference in the world to the meaning of it if only it had been properly included.

[Qutzupalotl]

11. It's not just the Clintons who get smeared.

It's all the leading candidates, and even some in "Tier 2". Our archives will be a gold mine for Freepers in the GE.

I have an explanation for why it seems as though each candidate's supporters are saying their candidate is taking the most heat. Each of us naturally tends to click on threads with our favorite candidate's name, so naturally we'll see more objections to him or her. But we're also more attuned to our chosen candidate, and therefore more sensitive to any attacks. We tend to rise to his/her defense. We don't care as much when candidates we don't like get smeared--at least not enough to warrant a passionate defense.

We need more threads saying what we LIKE about our favorites without mentioning the other candidates, even by implication.

[skipos]

13. Jeeze, you are one to talk. Start any uninformative anti-Edwards threads today?

As someone who has no candidate and sees the strengths and weaknesses in ALL the candidates, even my least favorites (Kucinich and Clinton) I see plenty of hyperbole coming from all sides. You serve up a healthy amount of it against Edwards.

[mtnsnake]

15. No, but I did one about his lack of loyalty yesterday (Snicker)

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

5. A recurring problem here...

...but probably not unique to the DU community. Once we're within 12 months of a midterm or presidential election, I think DU admins should routinely move these kind of threads to a special forum, maybe called the Says-A-Me Street Playroom, where all the brilliant "My candidate's good, yours is evil" exchanges can be confined. The Mod overseeing it should be called Big Bird and DUers who establish a pattern of having to be sent there rather than just starting their thread there get this for his/her mandatory avatar:



This is the kind of shit I'm talking about:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3738102

This thread was clearly established for the purpose of baiting people into just the kind of petty exchanges you're talking about. And maybe it's in response to the same kind of thread attacking Hillary, that wouldn't surprise me. But it's petty, becoming pervasive, and we don't need it.

[D23MIURG23]

14. LMAO

I almost lost my dinner from reading your post.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Every Dem candidate is qualified 1000 times more than the best GOP candidate.

Remember the original debates? The initial reactions of both Dems and the press was that the Dems had the best line up in years---a wealth of talent from which to choose. Somehow, we have been manipulated to believe that our candidates are all losers. We did not decide that on our own. Someone is telling us that, and we, being the same suckers for Freeper moles and MSM propaganda that we always are, let them take over the boards until it begins to look like we actually believe it.

I say "looks like", because I do not think that the heart and soul of DU believes it. I think that the heart and soul of DU is sitting back, watching the flame wars, hesitant to say "Hold on there. Isn't that rhetoric a little over the top" for fear of stifling constructive debate.

But what we have here is not constructive debate. We have deliberate provocative action, designed to keep us from uniting so that we can challenge the obstructionist Republicans in Congress, and challenge the Bush administration.

Face it---to read this board right now, you would think that Democrats blame Hillary and Hillary alone for Iraq and for the possible war in Iran. Not Bush/Cheney, not Congressional Republicans.

This is bizarro world. This is Through the Looking Glass. This the GOP's best hopes for 2008.

[Clintonista2]

8. Disagree. Obama/Edwards supporters have influenced me

I went from liking Hillary only *slightly* more than BO/JE, to liking her better than both of them combined, multiplied by 50.

[progressoid]

9. Hey, this poll really pisses me off.

:mad: What are you implying? :grr: Who are you schilling for? :freak:





:sarcasm:

[Hydra]

10. Most of the camps are doing a disservice to the rep they are supporting

If I wanted to hear how great/bad a rep was without evidence, I'd watch an infomercial. HRC camp is perhaps the worst of this, but many of these little flamefests boil down to:

"Uh-huh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"

As for the person further up who made the remarks about "quotes out of context," these people are campaigning to become one of the most powerful people in the world- if they can't be careful about what they say at all times, they can drop out. We don't need another Little Boots saying things like "money trumps peace" when he's caught off guard.

[frogmarch]

12. Because of all the infighting

I no longer recommend DU to anyone I know. I'm afraid they might find it a real turn off.