Lets talk
Ok, so no one can say this whole thing hasn't gotten ugly. Everyone has there feelings as to where it started. Me personally, I saw Clinton supporters getting real ugly with the kool aid comments and the cult of Obama stuff, however i fully understand that Clinton supporters feel like they were getting trashed first. I don't know who's right, and I don't care. Me personally, I think the MSM started the whole thing with little needle and pin comments that put us all on edge, made us all feel defensive and angry.
That's my theory anyways. Ratings are good when things are ugly.
The facts are these, both candidates have drawn amazing support, and at the beginning of this race either one could have won in a landslide. However, we are now in a different position, where both candidates have a real chance of losing. The media loves Mcain, and them ignoring him is good for him.
Whichever way this goes roughly half of us will be disappointed. Some of us will be damn right angry. I'm not fond of Clinton. Mainly because I live in a caucus state and am highly insulted by her insistence on every vote counting but being completely willing to disenfranchise me even though I did not have a choice in how to vote. I will admit that after that she would have to earn my vote in the fall. It won't take much because in my heart I know she will be 1000 times better for this country then Mcain, but effort will have to be made. I know this sounds like an attack. It really isn't. This is how her comments have made me, as a voter, feel.
I feel like we need to stop dismissing each other. We have real concerns, real feelings about what has been said and done. On both sides. By dismissing each other we just make it worse. When my concerns are out right dismissed as hateful anti Clinton rhetoric it makes me angry at Clinton and her supporters. I know Clintons supporters feel the same way.
We all want whats best for this country, and it is obvious that it is not the Warmonger.
The point of this post is just a hope that we can look at each other and realize that we want the same thing. A hope that we can come on this board and voice our concerns with the other candidate without being dismissed or insulted. A hope that we can voice those concerns in a manner that does not insult others.
This was posted because of some of the things I have read recently. It seems to be the first reaction that everyone jumps to is attacking people without realizing that they are voicing real concerns that they have. I have been guilty too.
That's my theory anyways. Ratings are good when things are ugly.
The facts are these, both candidates have drawn amazing support, and at the beginning of this race either one could have won in a landslide. However, we are now in a different position, where both candidates have a real chance of losing. The media loves Mcain, and them ignoring him is good for him.
Whichever way this goes roughly half of us will be disappointed. Some of us will be damn right angry. I'm not fond of Clinton. Mainly because I live in a caucus state and am highly insulted by her insistence on every vote counting but being completely willing to disenfranchise me even though I did not have a choice in how to vote. I will admit that after that she would have to earn my vote in the fall. It won't take much because in my heart I know she will be 1000 times better for this country then Mcain, but effort will have to be made. I know this sounds like an attack. It really isn't. This is how her comments have made me, as a voter, feel.
I feel like we need to stop dismissing each other. We have real concerns, real feelings about what has been said and done. On both sides. By dismissing each other we just make it worse. When my concerns are out right dismissed as hateful anti Clinton rhetoric it makes me angry at Clinton and her supporters. I know Clintons supporters feel the same way.
We all want whats best for this country, and it is obvious that it is not the Warmonger.
The point of this post is just a hope that we can look at each other and realize that we want the same thing. A hope that we can come on this board and voice our concerns with the other candidate without being dismissed or insulted. A hope that we can voice those concerns in a manner that does not insult others.
This was posted because of some of the things I have read recently. It seems to be the first reaction that everyone jumps to is attacking people without realizing that they are voicing real concerns that they have. I have been guilty too.
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I don't think it's gotten ugly. Obama throws elbows, Hillary throws pots and pans, it's normal. It's called politics.
(Daily Howler was noting that Hillary's supposed "kitchen sink" approach came from an unsourced anonymous "Hillary campaign worker" kind of like one of these anonymous workers that Drudge uses to "validate" his stories).
May 2, 2008 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is the ugliest primary any of us will ever see. If this isn't ugly, politically, I don't know what is. And it is called politics. Much of us don't see the ugly anymore because we're in states that have already weighed in. But in the remaining states, there is the ugliest of trench warfare.
And Obama is ahead because he's offering a way out of the ugly, and so many are ready for that voice.
There is a spite and venom amongst democrats about their candidates right now, and that will need time to mend. June 3... that will give us just about exactly 5 months. Realistically, though, it will be about four of straight-up, general election warfare.
May 2, 2008 3:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
To those who claim this is not ugly, both, on the part of the media and on the part of each of the candidates (Clinton, much more so, I believe, than Obama) are kidding themselves or have absolutely no clue about what civil debate in politics might look like. (And, to be fair, most Americans have been living with this corporate media spin for most of their lives, so, I don't suppose much could be expected of many Americans in that regard.)
It IS UGLY, and it's far from politics--it's slander and innuendo and guilt by association and, at it's lest offensive, downright "sillyness."
But POLITICS, it ain't. I hear almost nothing about actual policy, or social issues that really DO affect voters, and the rest of the world, for that matter. We're not hearing questions about foreign policy, even when one candidate repeatedly mentions "obliterating Iran", or creating a "nuclear umbrella," I've not heard much, if anything about education reform, that would bring the USA back to the forefront of innovation and technology. Have the candidates been asked or is the media talking about how the candidates plan to relieve the middle class of the enormous tax burden they currently carry? Why aren't the candidates being asked about the NUMEROUS accounts of voter suppression and what is going to be done about it? THESE are the issues that need to be talked about, yet all we hear about is an egomaniacal Reverend. And what a straight shooter John McCain is...and how Hillary MIGHT actually pull off a "win", even in light of her delegate disadvantage.
Again, I say--it's UGLY, that Americans have not been given better quality coverage of this historic election and it's unprecedented candidates.
It's disgusting to watch and America should be ashamed that this is the debacle that has become "electing a President."
May 2, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's the thing, politics don't have to be like this. If just once the American people stood up and said NO, if you are going to play this way you lost our vote then it would stop. These tactics are used because they work. These tactics are used because it gets you on the news more then your competitor and it shapes the debate of the talking heads.
May 2, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink