This is NOT a situation where all sides are guilty. One campaign is clearly down in the mud.

[TheWraith]

Regardless of the media having bought in at various times to the easy-out of "Everybody's guilty, so nobody is responsible," it's clear from any objective measurement that one campaign on the Democratic side is responsible for initiating and sustaining the mudslinging.

John Edwards didn't send four different proxies out into the media to talk about another candidate's self-admitted teenage drug use. Barack Obama didn't accuse the other two candidates of giving people "false hope" that the state of the country could be changed. Hillary Clinton has. Whether it's bringing race into the discussion, blaming others for a war she herself voted to authorize, ignoring campaign staff who were distributing bigoted propaganda, or a dozen other things, every major smear of this Democratic primary has started with the Clinton campaign, and nothing that came from either of the other two candidates even remotely measures up.

I challenge the Clinton supporters to show one of the other candidates "smearing" Clinton with anything on the level of what has been thrown at them. You can't, because it hasn't happened, yet you wail about the Clinton campaign supposedly being viciously attacked and defamed, while a hundred times worse is daily sent out against the other campaigns.

To the Clinton supporters here, I suggest that you either try to argue for your candidate in a positive manner, or say nothing at all. Because all that you're doing now, following in the footsteps of the smear machine, is reenforcing every gram of hatred instilled in all those not already true believers. At the rate things are going, even if your candidate wins the primary, you're endangering the chances of winning back the White House: by fostering resentment amongst unions, the working class, and black people, you're angering three core groups that you're going to need if you expect to get a candidate with 48% negative opinion elected.

[Frances]

1. Do you consider your post a positive one?

[Zensea]

8. irrelevant

The poster was writing about the candidates and their proxies.
It's a given that the supporters of candidates (especially on DU) engage in mudslinging.
However elevated a sense of their self some of the supporters of candidates on DU have, they are not proxies of the candidates.

edit -- well. I guess the poster gets around to dissing everybody in that last paragraph. ... my bad
:)

[Missy M]

2. Sorry, but you are wrong....

talk about getting in the mud, you have done a good job.

[Bread and Circus]

3. You summed it up well and laid it out as it is

bravo...

[Pathwalker]

4. You mean like this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4107041&mesg_id=4107777

[rodeodance]

6. now THAT was down and dirty!!

[BootinUp]

10. the OP Must have meant that.

how could such a righteous poster not point out that too?

[rodeodance]

5. This part of your post applies to Obama as a leader--for several days he

allowed the dirt to fly--getting a toxic stew--Then after days of this--he suddenly came out and said--Sen.clinton's comment were not racial.


.....ignoring campaign staff who were distributing bigoted propaganda, or a dozen other things,

[Zensea]

7. self delete

hit reply to the wrong post

[Bonobo]

9. The "Reagan Distortion" is like nothing I have ever seen. eom

[Sparkly]

11. I honestly don't see these as "smears" beyond typical campaigning.

She's taken her share, too. They all have.

I disagree, too, that she's brought race into the race. The punditry pounced on it, not any of the campaigns.

[cloudythescribbler]

12. Excellent point -- of course anything less than untouchable perfection by Obama will be read as ...

Obama being hypocritical. Ah, the trollagerie

[Wednesdays]

13. They're out in force these days...