Just a reminder: This is not a terribly dirty dem primary season

[cali]

If you don't remember Iowa 2003-4, you might think there's all kinds of nasty going on. Compared to 2004, this go around is nothing. And there's nothing that really comes close to Atwood/Rovian tricks.

[liberal N proud]

1. True

The Democratic candidates usually tear each other to pieces leaving nothing new for the republicons to focus on. It has always given the republicons the opportunity to sit back and nit pick at the already exposed flaws of their opponent.
Maybe that will give the Democrats an advantage come next month through the convention.
Let's hope.

[napi21]

2. Not YET! I realize the Iowa caucus is very close, but there's still

a couple of months until the BIG Feb. 5th vote. It could still get pretty nasty when the final contention gets close.

[cali]

3. Sure, it could happen, but to date this is not an ugly primary

season. And there isn't two months until Feb. 5. There's just 6 weeks. We'll see. But if it it hasn't happened in Iowa, I think that lessens the chances it will happen at all.

[Adelante]

4. We don't always know until later about nasty goings on

We get bits and pieces raising the ante.

SHUSTER: Chris, there‘s a lot of stuff that‘s going on under the radar, whether it‘s flyers, whether it‘s push phone calls, whether it‘s radio messages, whether it‘s canvassing operations; there‘s a lot of stuff going on under the radar. I think over the last two weeks—As you know, in tight races, especially with national implications, there is a lot of dirty pool that is played. Whether or not you can trace that back directly to the Clintons or simply their supporters, to say OK, now it‘s crunch time. Now it‘s time to raise the issue of Obama‘s electability because of his race; now it‘s time to raise the question beyond his experience.

Those are things that are being talked about now by some of the canvassers. And whether or not it‘s because they are trained improperly or whether they‘re just doing this on their own, it‘s still an issue and it‘s only going get worse.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22342862/

I don't expect anything near the Dean-Osama ad, but it all adds up. David Schuster's pretty level-headed, but he's saying it's bad and expecting it to get worse.