Okay, I've had enough already, and the primaries are still a year away. I'm fed up with people denigrating the politicians who have already thrown their collective hat into the ring, and so damned annoyed at the waste of breath and energy that is going into these constant attacks.
Sure you "hate" Hillary. Sure you "hate" Kerry. Sure you "hate" Obama, Edwards, Clark, Biden, Vilsack or any one of a dozen others who have made their intent known. Sure you think that someone isn't right for the office of President. But is it necessary to write the same god-damned comments in 25 different threads? I posted ONCE in one thread my opinion on the potential candidates, and I haven't said diddly since. And that was like a week ago. Why does everyone feel the need to post the same attacks over and over and over again, to the consternation of those of us who want to make this campaign a civil one?
I know that it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but frankly, the tedium of seeing the same level of attack posts on a daily--nay, hourly basis at this stage of the game is counterproductive. We should be trying to spend more time trying to find ways to keep our people who are in power to stay in power. We should be finding ways to showing the voters "out there" which party they should be supporting, and voting for. We should be making the next election an unsurpassed success by making the many voters not "connected" into firm Democrats by our actions instead of our petty likes and dislikes.
As I wrote in a post just a couple of nights ago, (
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3171940), those of us at DU are NOT going to be the ones who are going to decide who the face of America is going to be in 2008. We're just a small portion of that group--the legal voters in the country. We can make all the hoopla we want, but the 100,000 members of DU aren't going to make more than a drop in a bucket of water of the actual votes cast in the general election. It's reality, even if we think otherwise.
The attacks here aren't going to change any of that, and arguing constantly is only helping to raise the ire of a lot of people here, and causing good people to turn into flamethrowers, hatemongers and worse. It's making us look oh-so-petty and the extent of damage it will bring over the next year, to the primaries, is going to be horrible. We think that only the administration is truly evil, but by January 2008, we will also have nothing but contempt for the entire lot of our OWN candidates, who, after being torn down constantly on DU, will look no better than the worst of the candidates on the right.
Is this what we want? I admit that we need to examine all the candidates--learn about them, learn their stances on various issues, look at their voting records and mostly look at what they stand for, but the shit about what they might have supported three, four years ago doesn't mean anything. As we should ALL be aware, we learn something new, and we change our opinion on the new information. The IWR especially was cast in a completely different light back in 2003, and was approved by many who truly believed that the administration had information to prove their allegations. THAT CHANGED. If those in the Senate had only known all the facts, the vote would have been a different one.
We here at DU are a fair representation of the face of our country already, and that's good. We all have our particular "pet" topics, we all have had a wide variety of experiences in our lives, and we all have many varied opinions, and here we like to voice them. But PLEASE!!! Let's cut down the harsh criticisms of the candidates at this time. It's too god-damned early to be spouting off about them, and frankly, it offers a lot of fodder for those who want to prove that we're as petty as everyone else. We need solidarity to bring about the future, and to make it to a Democratic win in November 2008. Let's not blow that chance by being sent to our own corners so often it becomes a way of life.