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i agree wholeheartedly with you statement about the sad state of affairs regarding democratic loyalty. democrats need to temporarily downplay the notion that we can and should vote for the best candidate regardless of party. we all can achieve our collective and individual political goals best if we first focus on wresting power from the republicans. then we can start the inevitable bickering....
but in order to win elections, if the other guy is playing juvenile high school games, unfortunately, you MUST address this head on. now, that doesn't always mean you have to roll in the mud with him, sometimes you can simply take him to task for lowering the standard of debate. HOWEVER, democrats CONSISTENTLY misunderestimate the political power of an effective putdown or smear. remember such debate one-liners as "there you go again", "where's the beef" and "you're no jack kennedy"? what the hell do these things have to do with policy? nothing! but we remember them YEARS LATER, because they are genuinely effective, no matter how much we might intellectually wish it were not so.
what we must do is figure out just HOW to fight against these smears. we can have a lively debate on the tactics, but one way or another, we MUST fight back against these attacks.
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