Torn between candidates...any suggestions?

[Blue_Roses]

I am so torn between candidates. I go back and forth from Clark to Dean-Dean to Clark-and so on...I find myself supporting both campaigns. I have been trying to pick one, so I can throw my entire support behind them, but I just can't choose.

I have to honestly say that I will be glad when the primaries are over, so this energy goes toward ONE candidate.

Anybody else having problems with this? Suggestions greatly appreciated.

[vi5]

1. Yes.....a daily struggle....

Although not between 2 candidates between any of them.

I did get off the fence and donate some money to Dean and was planning on backing him but he has dissapointed me over time. He's still in the top 3 of my preferences but I can no longer unequivicably support him. And if he wins the nomination I fear that even though I will donate again and campaign actively, that it will be an uphill battle because of how he ran in the primary.

I like Kerry on paper but he has given me little inspiration and has run a very lackluster campaign.

I like Clark but there are still too many unanswered questions and reservations I have.

Any of these 3 I can get behind solidly, in addition to Edwards, even though I fear his lackluster campaign and lack of inspiring performance during campaign season has left me cold.

[ramapo]

4. My thoughts exactly...

It is still early. Watch how the candidates perform. Vote for your choice. Then support the nominee.

My gut tells me it'll be Clark. My gut is very good at picking future candidates. It has selected Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II (had a bad feeling from the beginning with him). Now it tells me that Clark will be the next President barring a dramatic change in how things are going in the economy and world.

[thebigidea]

2. just develop a split personality

try to come up with a unique voice for each of your personalities. Maybe wear a wig as the Dean supporter, a big fakey moustache as the Clark supporter.

works for me!

[gully]

3. If you live in a primary state it's an issue...

Otherwise you wait and watch.

Although I recommend supporting Dean because he has a record with the party.

I'd prefer Clark get his feet wet first before going for the top job.

[Boudicea]

5. My suggestion -- vote Kucinich

I've been thinking Dean, but my heart is with Kucinich. Don't care if he "electable." I'm doing it. Good luck with your decision. :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I'm supporting Kucinich

through the primary season as a means of stating my preference for a party that not only has guts but a coherent vision of America's future instead of a band-aid approach to problems.

[dpbrown]

19. Me, too

Universal Single Payer Health Care, an end to the death penalty, making the Pentagon more accountable, demilitarizing space, ending Star Wars, and getting out of NAFTA and the WTO since they won't protect workers' rights and the environment should be bread-and-butter liberal Democratic principles.

Since only one candidate is supporting those bread-and-butter issues, that's my candidate.

No wavering for me.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[WinstonChurchill]

7. Clark Might Win Some Southern States

Northeasterners will play well in the Northeast, of course, California and some midwestern states. But southerners think of Northeasterners as folks from the "Deep North" and that's a real problem. Clinton and Carter were from the south -- that's what we need to win.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. I like the challenge Kerry will present then

be nice to turn this one upside down forever.

[rucky]

9. Support Them Both...You Don't Have to Choose Yet

That's the great thing about primaries - and their purpose. You don't have to choose until voting day - if your state even has a primary. Get ACTIVE in both campaigns, meet with the campaign workers, and closer to the big day, evaluate what you've gotten from each experience. By then you'll be basing your decisions from a standpoint that's much more informed than if you just read the DU flame-fests.

I'm doing the same thing with Kucinich and Dean. So far, I have to say that I like Dennis better on the issues, but the Dean meetups and all the creative grassroots campaigning have been fun, clever and effective. If Dean runs the white house like Trippi runs his campaign, then he will be a very effective president.

ABB!

[Scottie72]

10. Well....

I support most of what each canidate represents. I will be able to happily vote for almost any of the Democratic nominiees.

Just a word of caution.... listen carefully to what they are all saying now, because this is more likely how they truely feel. Once the general election campaign starts they will most likely start to edge their veiw more to the center.

I say support them both.... When I watch the debates several of the canindate make me excited.

[PATRICK]

11. we are not exactly bellweathers

on DU as has been proven, I think. Otherwise it would be Dean or even Kucinich. Instead we have to see how the candidates do with the primary populations, luck, charisma, the GOP slander machine. I notice NewYork is leaning Clark a bit, but from past experience that could change completely. New York has often been in a more comfortable decisive position after the early smoke has cleared. Maybe we have something of a group primary mentality by now that usualy picks the winner- if the leading candidate is such. I'm thinking of when we slammed party mediocrity by picking Jesse Jackson over Dukakis- which was deliberate for many of us.

This time it should be tougher or someone will have broken out enough to settle the issue. Definitely spoiled in New York. If we were first in the nation? Yow. I just don't know and I can see why we're not.

[Capn Sunshine]

12. Easy solution- Wait until Dean gets nominated

and vote for him in the general election

Clark will be on the ballot as VP just like he wants.

[jab105]

13. Yes, same/

I'm going with Dean for the primaries, but not bashing either one, and talking up both to people around me...

The reason is cause Dean seems much more grassroots and anti-establishment...I think that change would be good...

But I love Clark also...

Happy either way, just wish primaries would hurry and get over so we can focus on Bush!

[mandyky]

14. Since Dean's campaign allows for more grassroots support

maybe you can work with them, and then just decide later. If you're out talking to folks, mention both candidates. I don't know if Clark has the same tools and such that Dean has (like flyers and business cards), but maybe you can suggest stuff like that to Clark's campaign.

I think a Dean Clark ticket would win in 04.

[CWebster]

15. Here is a suggestion from William Greider

"... My point is, the Democratic nominating contest is essentially about determining the nature of that party, not the "electability" question. Howard Dean represents anti-establishment insurrection from the ground up. His popularity is not about left or right issues (as the media and his opponents keep claiming) but rides upon the swelling anger people feel toward Bush and the Dems' own complacent, top-down, risk-averse, corporate-compromised leadership. The press is still on Dean's case, picking away at his supposed contradictions. But the Washington Post fronted an insightful counter-version by Laura Blumenfeld (October 1) that explains Dean's empowering language and angle of vision. It's not about him, he tells voters, it's about them -- all the people who feel ignored and disenfranchised, not only by Bush the right-winger. but by their own party's Washington elites.

Dean is profoundly correct in this critique. If he survives their assaults and prevails in the nomination (I think he can), it will be like an implosion of the insider illusions governing the Democratic party. He lacks their esteemed connections to the corporate-financial infrastructure that runs politics, so why is he raising more money? Because he has a list of people -- active citizens, not monied contributors -- unlike anything the party itself possesses (I've heard Dean's database variously described as 400,000 or 600,000 or 1.2 million names)...The Doctor might stumble, of course, but his nomination (even if he then loses to Bush) would produce a profound ventilation -- actually a violent shake-up -- in the modern methodologies of what used to know as the party of working people.

Who could be against that? The Democratic incumbency. The last thing they want in their lives is competitive elections or citizens who come out of the woodwork to launch their own techno-grassroots campaigns. Yes, incumbent Dems all want Bush out, but they would much prefer it's done by a safer, more reliable candidate.

General Clark? I don't mean to pick on him but he seems the perfect vessel for conveying a "new face" sense of change without actually disturbing the status quo. A number of fellow bloggers accused me of seeing black helicopters when I earlier described Clark as the Clinton establishment's stalking horse . But that is self-evident now that Clark is an active candidate. Mr. Bill's Hollywood friends are swarming around the General with money; his campaign is run by Clintonoids. The General's tepid economic-stimulus plan is off-the-shelf stuff from the Democratic Leadership Council. He is being tutored on economics by Citigroup godfather Robert Rubin and Gene Sperling, the DLC's economist in chief.

If you want four more years of Wall Street economics guiding the Democratic party, go with the Four Stars. If you are ready for risk and real change, listen to the Doctor. People who put aside convictions in order to win an election often wind up regretting it. I know I did during Bill Clinton's presidency. "


http://www.williamgreider.com/article.php?article_id=21

[IrateCitizen]

16. And that's a damned wise source, IMHO!

William Greider is one of the journalistic voices that I trust most, even if he isn't always right on -- his recent championing of McDonalds' "green campaign" was a little over the top. But he's not off very often, and he has a very keen eye for how Washington politics play out.

I always look forward to his stuff in The Nation.

[javadu]

17. I Know How You Feel

I feel myself getting "worked up" over the primaries, and find it difficult to decide between candidates. My top two candidates are the same as yours, but right now I am with Clark. I have given money to both. I live in a state, however, with a meaningless primary. So, I am also just trying to take it easy and let it play itself out. When a candidate has been decided on, I will be working for that person and I can't wait.

Intellectually, I know that the attacks that get thrown during the primaries don't do damage to candidates and probably make them stronger. Nevertheless, I hate to see it, because I like all of the candidates a lot. Every time I see a debate I am impressed with almost everyone in the field. (There are a couple I don't like very much, but I will not be negative). It is a good time to be a dem and I am looking forward to winning in 2004.

[Blue_Roses]

18. Lots of good suggestions

and I really appreciate them.

I'm just going to continue to keep an open mind...and most of all keep listening and watching.