Another good diary on DKOS

[TayTay]

and food for thought. I can't believe I rec'd 2 things on DKos in one day. A new record for me.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/18/13451/3998

[whometense]

1. Wow.

In 2004, the "most annoying supporters" prize went, I'm sad to say, to the Dean crowd.

Never thought I'd see those words coming from Kos.

[whometense]

2. And this:

Once you become a self-styled ambassador for your guy, your behavior rubs off (for better or for worse) on the person you are promoting.

Amazing.

[beachmom]

3. Hey, great minds think alike. I was just reading that thread when

I came back over here to find . . . you guys reading that thread. Something has happened to Markos, I'm not sure what. He doesn't really go after Kerry anymore; the joke seemed to have had an effect on him. Like it was a lightbulb moment of how villainized he's been over the years, most of it unfairly. Who knows? But I'll take the reprieve while it lasts.

[TayTay]

5. He respects Kerry as a Senator

That deepened after the '04 loss and Kos got some distancing. There have been a number of occasions when Kos has been nearly complimentary toward Kerry. I always got the feeling that he had a hand in the HeyJohn website because he was convinced, that of all the pols out there, Kerry would actually respond. (Back-handed compliment, but a compliment never-the-less.)

[blm]

6. I think Kerry's very public support of Lamont made some background people realize

what a sincere, standup Democrat Kerry is and always has been. He's RELIABLE and usually on the right side of and often leading every serious battle the Democrats have faced over the last 35 years.

[Blaukraut]

4. he's absolutely correct

The Dean supporters were insufferable last time, and more often than not turned people off Dean more than Dean himself may have done.
The only disagreement I might have with kos about this year's annoying supporters is that he only named Gore and Edwards supporters. As a matter of fact, Clarkies are pretty obnoxious, too.

[blm]

7. There were a PORTION of Dean supporters who were obnoxious. Most were sincere

and earnest about their advocacy and had little difficulty following Dean and supporting not only Kerry, but doing alot of the heavy lifting when Dean needed help CHANGING the DNC that was actually the biggest part of the Dem party's election problems.

They joined people like me in 2004 to help Kerry and I joined them to help get Dean into the DNC chairmanship.

I don't know about the kossack Deaniacs, but I have come to care alot about many of the DU Deaniacs. I TRUST many of them. And I hope they feel the same.

[Blaukraut]

8. not disputing that

most, if not all Dean supporters got fully behind John Kerry AFTER the primaries - more so than other candidates' supporters, actually.

[blm]

9. Wasn't dogging you, just wanted to ADD that to your remarks.

i just post so bluntly that it's hard to tell the difference, I guess. ;)))) That's why I get into so much trouble.

[Blaukraut]

12. I know, blm

I also want to clarify that I by no means want to say that ALL Dean supporters were obnoxious, and that they were the only candidate supporters who were. They just seemed to be the most vocal, and greater in number :-)
They definitely gave their all, first for Dean, then lining up behind JK, and finally supporting HD as DNC chairman.

[madfloridian]

10. Thanks for taking up for "some" of us.

Ask yourself why Kos would post that just now. Dean is not running, not even thinking about it. Neither are the others he slammed. Think about it. Why?

And thanks for all the kind words from the rest of you. :shrug:

[TayTay]

11. Ahm, I'm a little at a loss here

MadFlo. I posted this as a navel-gazing thing for people on this group to consider because I think there is wisdom to what Kos said that people here, who are in a specific group dedicated to one person might benefit from reading.

I didn't support or talk against you or anyone else. I thought the diary on DKos stood on it's own as a thougtful warning to anyone who posts about anyone, Kerry people included.

I am at a loss to explain why that offends you?

[madfloridian]

13. I was thanking blm for saying not all of us were bad.

That's all.

It's all in the past, isn't it?

Isn't it?

[TayTay]

15. Well yeah, that's what I thought

I wrote extensively last year about the support that Kerry people gave to the 50 State Strategy and have posted that several times, when appropriate, in other parts of DU. I think that Kerry and Dean see eye-to-eye on more than most in DC and have 'buried the hatchet.' I think they buried it in April of '04 and moved on.

But why the comments here? This diary on Dkos was a navel-gazing thing about people not being too ardent in suporting whoever they support because they can wind up turning people off. I agree, that can easily happen. Kos faulted some Deaniacs in '04. I wasn't around in '04, but I heard that happened back then. I think it has happened with others. I think anyone, including people in this group, are subject to having it happen to them. (Some think it already has and that sometimes there are too many pushy Kerry threads in DU.) It was something to think about.

Again, at a loss to see why the irritation on this

:shrug:

[madfloridian]

17. Well, you need to think about all the people he targeted ...NOT running.

Why would he suddenly do that? The fact he did not mention Kerry is not entering into my thinking. Why would he out of the blue post attacks against supporters of all these people?

"In 2004, the "most annoying supporters" prize went, I'm sad to say, to the Dean crowd. In 2006, the Hackett brigades were insufferable. Remember? Only Hackett was "electable" because Brown was "too liberal" and blah blah blah blah? Senator Sherrod Brown showed just how irrational (in addition to insufferable) that crowd was. The runner-up prize went to the Christine Cegelis supporters, who, despite all their kvetching, couldn't help their candidate win in a ridiculously low turnout primary. It's as if they were so busy crying about the injustices suffered by their candidate that they forgot to turn out and vote.

In 2008, the prize for "most annoying" is a close race between the "Talk about Gore running even though he's said he's not running!" crowd and the "Why is everyone always dumping on John Edwards?" crew."

Just think about the omissions as well. Very obvious omissions.

Why would his attack just come out of the blue sky like this? Dean, Gore? not running. Edwards..running. Cegelis..out by Rahm decree. Hackett..well. that's another story.

It's a gloating thread by Kos. But why? Hey, I have tried to be civil.

[blm]

21. Kos had been leaving Kerry out of the running for the last few months.

I do wonder why he would have dogged Dean supporters after all this time?

[TayTay]

22. Ah, there aren't a lot of hard-core Dkos fans here

I don't think most people in this group trust Kos at all. But I think he was posting this because he is reading a lot of posts from people who he thinks are whining about others being mean to their candidates. I seriously did not take it as a gloating thread. A lot of the people in those threads were supported, at one time or another, by Kos. I don't honestly discern a pattern here.

I do think that a lot of the online blogs and forum are not looking forward to certain aspects of the '08 primary race. DU has instituted that new ability to be able to block people from posting on threads (the new way to 'ignore' people) and I bet other blogs will come up with other ways to try and keep Dem Wars under control. I thought the Kos diary was just another 'think before you post' thing that benefits all those who post there.

I thought that was a fairly innocuous post, especially coming from Kos who is not really someone who I think of when the word 'tact' comes up. (And Kos has certainly engaged in the behavior he accuses others of. His defense of the 'heyJohn' thing back last Oct was one long whine in favor of his buddy from MyDD.) But, I took it at face value. Be careful how you post, it can come back and bite in the butt later. We have had threads in here that have said the same thing.

[blm]

20. I believe GOP operatives were wormed into every camp and every Dem forum.

I think THEY were the ones causing most of the trouble and egging the less experiences activists into taking harder stances.

Hey - not ALL Kerry supporters were bad, eh? ;)))

[beachmom]

14. I wasn't on the blogs during the last presidential primary

So you can call me a clean slate. I never saw what happened, and have found you to have one of the sane voices on the big DU boards.

Edited to add: I took this as a reminder to behave myself lest I make JK look bad.

[blm]

16. I've long been suspicious of kos' motives.

He comes off as insincere and unprincipled too often for my liking.

Fill us in, mf, what should we know?

[madfloridian]

19. Right now, not sure.

Just not sure. Why now to put us all down? Don't know for sure.

[wisteria]

24. I also question his motives. We had the Hillary/SBV diary and now

this. He was one of those Dean supporters who just loved to put everyone else down- especially Kerry. I don't trust him at all.
A sell out?

[madfloridian]

25. That's the problem. Kos was a Clark supporter...

then worked with the Dean campaign internet stuff when Clark delayed announcing. He was in on the Draft Clark from the beginning. As far as I know, he was never really a supporter of Dean the person.

[whometense]

26. You ask some interesting questions.

I think at this point Dean and Kerry are great natural allies. Kerry is 100% on board with the 50 state strategy, Dean (and Clark) were Kerry's only two decent MSM defenders during the 2004 campaign. Kerry is an insider who's really an outsider, and I believe Dean sees himself the same way. Neither of them is allied with the DLC. So that's all good. Water under the bridge.

I don't know where Kos was going with that post, except, as beachmom said, to warn people that their enthusiasm for one candidate can cause them to be a bad spokesperson for the cause. We all have to keep some sense of objectivity.

My example: when I first put a Kerry bumper sticker on my car in 2003 I became acutely aware that I could no longer drive like a typical Masshole, as that might reflect badly on Kerry.

Another example was that Boston Phoenix thread a few months back when the Kerry bashers turned off one of the posters, and he said he was going to give Kerry another look because his defenders used facts rather than invective. In Kos's case, that's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, but I assumed that was what he meant.

Do you have another theory?

[madfloridian]

27. No more theories, just lots of questions.

About who he did not warn.

And last time in 2004 and mostly in 2006 we knew which bloggers were working for which candidates. (after raising a stink) Now we don't know much.

[Blaukraut]

18. As far as I remember, you were mostly fair and levelheaded

back during the primaries. There were always flame threads, and many of the posters who were the worst offenders ended up leaving DU once Kerry was nominated because of the gag rule that Skinner implemented. A few names stand out in particular.

I can only speak from personal experience that the primary period was seriously rough, and I felt like reaching through the screen to pop a few people upside the head a lot of times. :D

Still, that is all water under the bridge, and as I said to blm, the Dean supporters also stood out in a good way. You guys (except the truly angry and disappointed supporters) got behind the nominee, and stood up for Dean in support of his DNC chairmanship and defended him in all the attacks leveled at him by DLCers.

I'm with you there. Dean is the best thing to happen to the DNC in a long time, and he has my full support.

[wisteria]

23. I have appreciated your support of Senator Kerry. Dean has been a target

also. I have tried to defend him too.