The Clark Freeping at DU is getting really scary

and I hope the mods and admins do something about it.

In another thread today or yesterday (I worked today so it faded I think), precise links to Clark blogs and sites where Clarkers are urged to come and freep polls here and - by implication, to try to sway votes here from Dean or anybody else to Clark.

MOSTLY these types of posters attack Dean for any minor error and/or they attack Dean supporters personally or by implication for being true believers.

Posts about Clark's ties to the Stephens Group (which backed both Bushes, arranged Saudi fginancing for Shrub, and gave Shrub $100,000 the same year (2001) they hired Clark to lobby for homeland security contracts with Axciom) get little attention or are lambasted as falsehoods (altho any reasonable person can research these facts with a simple google search TRY STEPHENS GROUP, BUSH. CLARK, SAUDIS, for starters).

I am very concerned that DU has become the weirdo magnet for the extreme right to surreptitiously push a candidate who was not even a Democrat until a few months ago.

I guess if Pat Buchanan suddenly joined the Democratic race we would be bound to embrace him and keep our hands off.

It troubles me.

There is an effort to disrupt, in my opinion, the orderly discourse here by folks who intentionally are recruited or come here in an organized way to spew hate about Dean and to bolster the perception that the majority here support Clark.

I sincerely hope that ALL of us remain alert to folks who freep here and that the mods and admins can maintain their alertness as well as their objectivity and tombstone those who have been bussed in here to skew the discussions here to an anti-Dean pro-Pentagon candidate (Clark) agenda.

DEAN is currently the frontrunner and the most likely DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate at this point. He has the largest groundswell of popular support. I think he is the only viable candidate we can trust with NO BFEE ties or BFE support history.

I am only asking that the admins and mods be watchful for these "influxes" from other boards with agendas to disrupt the free flow of ideas and dialogue here.

Debate history. Debate qualifications. Debate shady ties or pasts.

But do not post en masse on inane issues or to freep the polls here.

The admins know who is doing it.

We ALL need to keep aware of it and don't let it distract us too much.

And I don't think people who go to Clark's blog are Republicans either. In fact, Republicans are generally terrified of a Clark nomination.

I see this as nothing more than supporters of a candidate getting organised. How many times has someone posted on DU about voting on some CNN or MSNBC poll? There is no difference. In fact, I would expect the Dean people to already be doing it. Heck, John Edwards WIFE asked supporters to vote in the DU poll.

Big deal, you're over-reacting and your characterisation of all Clark supporters as Republicans is out of line.


My 2 cents.

CLARK is the republican.

People who support him are voting for a Republican put up by the military war contractors to protect their turf because Bush is going down.

It is the bitter Rovian attacks on Dean that I observe and am reacting to.

The fact that there is an obvious effort to slant the polls that is in evidence is one thing,

Buit the tenor of the attacks on Dean in favor of Clark has a distinctly Rovian stench to it in my humble opinion.

Elizabeth Edwards thanked people who talk about her husband at DU for taking the time to do so. She didn't encourage people to vote, directly at least.

Regardless, I'm with you on this. Clark people are every bit as entiteld to encourage people to come to DU as Dean's people were.

This just sounds like sour grapes. Deaniacs were happy when they were the only people using the interent to its full potential. Now that another candidate is doing the exact same thing, some pots are calling the kettle black.

Ideally, supporters of ALL the candidates should be here hashing things out, and voting in the polls.

Accusing other DU members of being disruptors is against the rules.

pmbryant
DU Moderator

Please get over yourself. I won't, but I can name quite a few Dean supporters who constantly attack Clark. Just because you perceive Dean to be the frontrunner with the most support doesn't mean his supporters have precendence over others.

Not a single vote has been cast, not even in Iowa or New Hampshire and Dean's already considered the winner? That's some brand of democracy being practiced. Why even have elections?