I've had it with the anger on these boards over the candidates

[BuckeFushe]

The sniping, rude remarks, outright flaming of not only the candidates but each other is sickning. Shortly, one of the nine will be chosen to defeat the minions from hell squatting in the White House. If those of you who think that using tactics straight out of the RNC playbook is going to advance the Democratic/Progressive platform and induce the independents to vote for YOUR candidate, you are sadly mistaken.

It's time to move on, begin a process of uniting, and get behind the candidate who has the BEST chance of winning in 2004. For those of you who refuse to recognize this, we will lose, and our time in purgatory will be extended another four years. By the end of the Chimpster's second term, we may not have this opportunity for debate any longer.

End the bickering, end the hate, end the anguish. Work towards trhe goal of eliminating the Republican threat to our America.

[theboss]

1. Welcome to politics . . .

It's a dirty business. We don't play fair.

Get some boots and wade in.

[BuckeFushe]

4. Welcome to politics?

Interesting comment. Care to clarify that? Or do you think that playing dirty within our house is appropriate?

[alcuno]

23. The infighting is what makes us a great party.

It's what makes real politics instead of the fakery foisted upon us by Republicans.

[Ernesto]

24. Right on alcuno

Will Rogers said it well..... "I don't belong to a party, I'm a Democrat" Too bad the repukes don't have our handycap. They all seem to agree on their platform of greed, superstition & HATE.

[Tyler Durden]

5. mememememememe

"Politics is a dirty business" is the First and Worst of all meme's.

Politicians have been revered as public servants until the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire. In the old Republic, if an elected official was convicted of malfeasance like accepting a bribe, then his nose was cut off, he was sewn in a sack with wildcats and thrown into the Tiber.

It took MERCANTILISM and its bastard child CAPITALISM to turn politics into the sewer it has become.

[theboss]

8. Actually, it took Augustus

And the threat of having your balls cut off.

"Let's make the bastard deny it." -- LBJ

[Nazgul35]

2. Don't worry....

it'll happen...

Almost everyone will come around based upon the level of maturity each possesses....those who are mature will understand the concerns you stated and rally around the winner....whomever that will be...

Some will take some time to nurse their "percieved" wounds...remember that alot of people put themselves out there with alot of silly ass statements that will now involve a severe swallowing of pride that they may or may not be capable of...

[ModerateMiddle]

3. therein lies the problem

you said,

It's time to move on, begin a process of uniting, and get behind the candidate who has the BEST chance of winning in 2004.

There is considerable disagreement about who that candidate is. That's why the in-fighting. I do believe that beating Bush is everyone's number 1 priority.

[arwalden]

6. I'm Sending People To My Ignore List For A Week...

... the over-the-top, hateful, and bitter comments are more divisive than anything else.

I suppose I could just ignore the thread itself... but I'd be ignoring thread after thread from the same person/eople. So it's just easier to ignore (send to the corner for a 7-day "time out") the troublemakers.

I'll unignore him, her, them after a week to see if they've calmed down or to see if they've been tombstoned.

In any case GD NEEDS SOME PROACTIVE AND AGGRESSIVE CLEANING UP. I don't have to put up with this shit. Neither should you. Take matters into your own hands and use the tools that Skinner gave you.

If you can't set an example... then you at least have the power to tidy-up your own little corner of DU and make it more comfortable. Right?

-- Allen

[Kremer]

7. I AGREE!

And freaken chill out about the damn Al Gore endorsement. Geesus! What is the big deal? Al is a grown man and he can do what he wants. I hear plenty of pundits, editorials, etc, saying it really isn't going to change much and no voter will be swayed by a politician. Okay then why the hell are we discussing it? Man you'd think Karl Rove officially endorsed Dean! One little thing and a damn firestorm is unleashed for no reason!!!

[Julien Sorel]

27. LOL

Rove endorsed Dean a loooooong time ago. I think it was July. He was ahead of the curve on that one. :-)

[Le Taz Hot]

9. Kick

I'm on a mission this morning to kick unity threads and threads that seek to remind us who the REAL enemy is.

:kick:

[Jerseycoa]

10. You don't get it

There is no agreement on who best can beat Bush. There is no agreement on who would make the best president of the candidates. There is no agreement on who will be the nominee. That takes votes, you know? There is absolutely no agreement that we want our primary votes to be meaningless. When the GE comes up, we'll all be there. But stop deluding yourself about where we are now. It's just plain silly. Everybody here has a candidate or is considering candidates. Everybody here will support who they want to support.

[arwalden]

12. For Me It's Not WHOM They Support But HOW They Support...

... get it?

-- Allen

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

13. Hear! Hear!

But you know, Allen, that some of these folks are not exactly genuine, right?

[arwalden]

15. Yep... I've Got Many Of Them Figured Out.

I can't call-them on it, because they are often so subtle and clever that they can claim a plausible degree of innocence. (And then click "alert" because of a "personal attack".)

The less than genuine folks you describe are peppered throughout GD... but I think they underestimate the intelligence of folks like you and me (and others) who can spot them easily and who know them for what they are and what they are doing.

-- Allen

[Le Taz Hot]

17. I see it,

many of us do. I've been putting the worst offenders in ignore. Sadly, that number is inching up to 100.

Your assessment is EXACTLY right.

[BuckeFushe]

14. I do get 'it'.

And those of you who think that a candidate who doesn't even get recognition (other than an appearance on Tweety's show) by the media has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination will see a sea of red come next November. Reality is setting in. The field was too crowded to begin with, and the divisions caused by the candidates themselves only feeds the RNC machine, who KNOW that our party is divided by these petty squabbles.

[bearfartinthewoods]

11. bull......the pubbies didn't play nice with each other

last time. they didn't skip the primaries and unite early.

and bush is in the white hous.

follow their playbook...it worked..

[Clark Can WIN]

16. How very patronistic and facist of you

Before ONE vote has been cast.

[AWD]

18. Yes, calling for peace is facist

Of course, I doubt that it's fascist...but it might be facist.

[arwalden]

19. Sometimes I Wonder If The Definition Of FASCIST Varies

from alternate reality to alternate reality. Sometimes I wonder if folks just repeat the word just for effect. You know... to kick-up their rhetoric a notch or two because they KNOW it has that effect even if they don't know EXACTLY what it means.

Just thinking out loud.

-- Allen (doubts it's 'facist')

[AWD]

20. Exactly

....I mean, there was NO way that anything in this thread was fascism.

I just hate it when people use words that they have no idea what it means (or even how to spell it).

[Ernesto]

26. Clark can win?

Are you a ringer?

[BuckeFushe]

21. Bumped, because if it isn't on the first two pages, it gets lost.

[TreasonousBastard]

22. DU is not the world...

but it does have its share of whiny little children, trolls, provocateurs, and just plain ol' assholes.

You'll note that only a few, maybe a couple dozen at most, of the tens of thousands of members go over the top in this nonsense. And very few of them have much staying power.

Ignore them and they will go away. A lot of people miss the "Don't Feed the Trolls" sign.

It is (as I keep saying) not DU, but several million primary voters, and 60 million or so general election voters who will have the final say about all this.

They are the ones to convince.

[BeFree]

25. This is why no one wants to be involved

In Politics.

All the useless crap that floats around during campaigns is a roadblock to civility. Sadly, DU has showed a fine example of why some folks don't want anything to do with politics. The kind of churlish and childish behavior seen on DU for the past few months is enough to scare the sheeple right outta the process.

Too bad they didn't move at least the primary discussions to it's own forum. Oh well. Maybe they will come 2007?