I think you are still missing my #1. I don’t condone it, my point is simply that the people who are whining over the extreme nastiness are either ignorant of history or are just bellyaching for the hell of it. People are too quick to say “we’ve never seen anything like this before. The fact that you explain a situation that some would consider fucked up to me, doesn’t mean you endorse the attitude. I think that’s the mistake you are making.

Even in #2, you kind of missed my point. I just find the whole who was nastier or who started tedious. As a Hillary supporter, I can say Obama started because she said X on 7/26/07. I have no doubt that as an Obama supporter you could go back and find something Hillary did on 7/25/07. And I’ll come and you’ll come back.

I think you took the whole “yo mama” thing too literally.

I understand you want the candidate who runs a “clean” campaign focussed on “issues”. Then you’ll not vote. Obama’s campaign has been vile at time but I don’t want to whip myself into a frenzy about it. I understand how campaigns are run.

George Bush sold us that illusion in 2000 (and Al Gore was the vile politician who would do and say anything to win (Chris Matthews repeatedly said Al Gore would lick the bathroom floor to win). Obama has been even better at giving us that illusion too. It’s just that I’ve followed the campaign too closely to buy into that.

To summarize, all things considered the campaigns have been in bounds. They have both taken cheap shots. Obama’s campaign has not been clean by any measure. He just finished viciously trashing Hillary up and down PA. His campaign and his surrogates (some journos among them) have been great at selling the people that illusion. If he’s our candidate I hope they can repeat that performance and I’ll be in the middle of that fight with them.

I don’t even think there is such thing as a “clean” campaign. I volunteered on the “clean” campaign of Deval Patrick here in MA and we trashed the hell out of Kerry Healey. Deval is another topic for another day.

Just Sean is fine.

GOPmc: I hope you don’t ascribe your explanation to me.

No, you’ve actually been quite reasonable and enjoyable to exchange comments with. But you did (and in your point #1 you again) touch on an attitude that I have seen far to often in discussions. The “It’s not like others haven’t behaved like this before” attitude/excuse as if that excused the current behavior.

As to your second point, I don’t expect anyone to be escorted to the presidency either. But why do we have to accept that it will be nasty? Yes, it is an extremely prestigious and important position. Why should we tolerate people lowering it to the level of hurling “Yo mama” insults? Would it not be better if all debates focussed on issues with the candidates explaining why they would be the better choice, instead of yammering on about manufactured irrelevancies and why the other person sucks. It’s an extremely prestigious and important position and only the best and brightest should be considered. I want to vote for the person who is best, not the one who is least bad. Why not complain when the candidates and their staff act like immature children and street brawlers?

If the candidates for this lofty position have resorted to “yo mama” exchanges and you’re not bothered by that, then you’ve bought into the idea that nothing can improve and that’s a shame.

I hope you don’t ascribe your explanation to me.

I am making 2 major points:

1- This is not as much a nasty campaign as much as supporters on each side say it is, in comparison to other campaigns in History. It’s simply a fact whether people chose to accept it or not.

2- Both campaigns play dirty some times and that’s fine with me. I am annoyed by the constant bellyaching and the perpetual whining.
Keep in mind, they are campaigning for the most prestigious, most important, toughest job in the world. So, the fact that somebody said “yo mama is fat” to the other doesn’t bother me. Nobody should expect to be escorted to the presidency, not even Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton for that matter.

If you think the Obama campaign is made of angels, listen to their conference call from today, it’s easily available. (I remember at an earlier conference call, Ben Smith asked Plouffe, why he wasn’t answering a question instead of obsessively trashing Hillary Clinton.)

This “you started, no, you started” bores me to tear, even when it comes from my candidate HRC. In fairness, I am sometimes guilty of it too, but I really try not to get carried away by that.

fafaroo: Could you expand on this point?

Sure. You can’t complain about some bad actions now because it isn’t the first time ever in history that someone has acted badly.

What’s so wrong about that?

Could you expand on this point?

I didn’t see your comments.

“Kitchen sink strategy” is a nice expression put out by marketing guru Axelrod, just like Repugs gave us “cut and run strategy”.

They all do bad things, but the press vilifies Hillary more. That’s exactly what happened between Bradley and Gore in 2000.
I remember Mark Halperin citing 9 reasons why the Obama campaign is going so negative and reason no.9 was “because he can. He knows the press will never hold him to account.” I’ll say spot on.

I could start citing all the things Obama and his campaign has said about Hillary but to me it’s a waste of time. David Axelrod and David Plouffe are a bunch of thugs, although Mark Penn is a much bigger thug. I just take it as a competition. This campaign has been mellow by historical standards.

“it’s more like Hillary is currently about 20% good and Obama’s about 80% good.”. Now that’s funny.

If you’ve been following the campaign that closely, then I would think you’d have to acknowledge that a fair assessment of the tactics taken by Hillary and Obama would show she’s been far more negative, personal, insulting and hypocritical than he has. I think z_adura has it right, even if you don’t agree with the particular percentages, “it’s more like Hillary is currently about 20% good and Obama’s about 80% good.”

The dismissal of voters who don’t support her (caucus voters, Iowan students, etc), the “kitchen sink” strategy, feeding the controversy of Wright while brushing off any questions about her own spiritual guides, praising McCain over Obama, dressing up her resume (solving the Ireland crisis, sniper fire, etc.) while dismissing his legitimate accomplishments.

Are the Obama supporters, the Obama campaign and Obama himself with completely clean hands? Of course not. But she has been far and away consistently worse.

As an out-of-state Iowa college student, why should I vote for someone that doesn’t think I should have a vote?

The urgency of these questions began to mount this week, as the level of nastiness reached new heights—or, rather, depths. For all its rhetoric about practicing a new, more virtuous brand of politics, the Obama campaign has been going after Clinton hammer and tongs. Rarely a day passes without his people dubbing her a liar and a fraud. (Although when it comes to Snipergate, it’s hard to blame them.) They have accused Bill Clinton of McCarthyism and invoked the infamous blue dress on which he left his, er, DNA—the latter coming on a blog post arguing that he actually makes McCarthy look benign. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if the Obamans are actively trying to cede the moral high ground.

I can come up with all the “Republic talking points” Obama has been using against Hillary since last summer but that is not going to stop me from working hard for him if he’s our nominee, and I’m a very strong Hillary supporter.

The idea that Hillary is vile and Obama is good is a crock, tell it to someone who doesn’t follow the campaign.

No, I haven’t. Nor the calls of any campaign. As most of the population hasn’t. Since you’ve followed teh campaign way so closely perhaps you can fill me in on what I’ve missed.

What I haven’t missed is hearing her repeatedly say Obama wasn’t ready to be Commander in Chief, but McCain is and I haven’t heard Obama say anything similar. I’ve also heard her say (as recently as the ABC debate debacle) the Obama needs to explain his relationship to Rev Wright more and I’ve heard her use almost the exact same words as McCain to call Obama an elitist while trying to make something out of his comments two weeks ago. In the recent months she or her agents have done and said so many things damaging to the Democrats that I can’t reasonably apply the label “good” Democrat to her.

They asked their members to vote, and a large fractions did:

Obama: 197,444 70.4%
Clinton: 83,084 29.6%

So that organization’s members strongly preferred one candidate over the other. MoveOn had no obligation to stay on the sidelines at all. Their endorsement was contingent on a 2/3sd majority of members voting for one candidate or another. Also, at that point in time, Edwards had just dropped out, so it was an ideal time to put their weight behind a candidate.

And you talk about “claptrap,” but have no response to the very real fact that she placed McCain on a pedestal higher than her fellow Democrat.

You make some good points and we can argue about some of them, but please, I beg of thee, drop the “a good Democrat doesn’t repeatedly spout Republic talking points and proclaim the Republican nominee to be a better choice than the Democratic front runner.

I have followed this campaign way to closely to listen to that claptrap.

They have both repeated Republic talking points. Have you ever listen to the daily conference calls of the Obama campaign? They are vicious, but I think it’s competition, only Obama gets a pass on many transgressions.

If you’re still around, ‘nite.

I’ll see you on another interesting thread.

And then you follow that up with Hillary’s having reason to feel betrayed. I mean, I won’t dispute that she may have reason, but that doesn’t mean she should be whining about it. Remember, this is national politics which she keeps pointing out she’s been involved in for decades, so shouldn’t she be “willing to be bruised” and be a bit less whiny about it when she is?

I do have to take real issue with describing her as a “good Democrat”. To me, a good Democrat doesn’t repeatedly spout Republic talking points and proclaim the Republican nominee to be a better choice than the Democratic front runner.

I am talking about a progressive cause on a national level, where you are willing to be bruised. Yes, it’s about Obama. I don’t want to disparage all the stuff you cited, but Ryan, his Republican opponent who quit the race did similar things after leaving Wall Street.

I never said the was owed anything, but she’s well within reason to feel betrayed. I know I would. She was savaged for days by the Rightwing, “serious liberals” for defending MoveOn.

I simple don’t believe a lifelong, good Democrat like she is deserves the treatment she is getting from “progressives”. I have the feeling we are treating her worse than we are treated Bush.