Where does questioning end and bashing begin?

I don't see a lot of these locked posts the past few days as "bashes". Honestly I have been back and forth between Edwards and Obama for months now, but lately I have real questions about Edwards past judgment. Does that make me a "basher"? It would be foolish to classify me as such when I still may caucus for the guy.

What I want are answers and explanations from those here that understand Edwards better than I must, but lately it seems that any attempt to clarify things or question our candidates is met with incessant posts about attacking candidates and what-not.

Enough already, if you want others to support your candidate, give us a reason to do so!

Explain Edwards actions related to Durbins latest revelations for starters. Please.

although I could be wrong.

I think that responding thoughtfully and patiently to questions and inquiries is the way to go this early in the primary season, IMO. But I'm not the decider here! :shrug:

Damn liburls.

:toast:

If it's seen as a call out to a specific group, then it'll get locked. On the other hand, sometimes posters, who don't like what's being said, will deliberately flame an innocent post to get it locked.

I think yours is ok:)

You ain't seen nothin' yet. Just wait until we really get into the primary season. This board is not for the sensitive.

I nearly left after the first time around.

Please go ahead and post thoughtful and reasonable posts about those you support. Many of us will read them, even if we do not reply.

I usually skip the really nasty threads, unless I am feeling combative. And I take a break from this place if it gets to be too much.

DU is a great place to learn. Google is your friend, too. But this is only a message board. After you have learned what you need and decided whom to support, go out and work for a candidate and an organization. It is far more productive than keyboard combat.

Good luck.

I've lurked here for a couple years, and first participated (although briefly) during primary season for the 06 elections. My roomate is actually quite active here as well.

I understand that some of these threads are simple flamebait, but what has kept me from posting much is the fact that simple questions, requests for clarifications, and comments that run contrary to someone elses are often met with either hostility or are dismissed offhand.

And as you can see from a post above, the new guys get no love!

So contact him. No third parties necessary. He's got good answers.

Seriously, are you honestly saying that DU should not be used to help formulate opinions of our candidates?

why don't you contact him, and then let us know the results. That would be most productive.

Listen, I've heard Edwards (and Obama, and Hillary, and the rest of em) give their piece, what I want is information or opinions by other activists, not spin.

DU is like a giant caucus, stand up and answer questions about your candidate, or you will lose potential support.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

recommended, Erika?

I think asking questions in a lot of places (including DU), including googling information is good. Asking the campaign is an excellent idea as well....however, the campaign is there to boost the candidate, so the information may be one sided coming strictly from the campaign or the candidate....doncha think? :Shrug:

why would you interview anyone else? No journalists trainees out there?

that one does. That's like asking for campaign literature. It will only tell one side, always...when usually there needs to be more sides in order to get a 3 dimensional understandng as to who a candidate truly is, and what he/she really stands for.

Is that a problem? He and Elizabeth are wonderful people.

Of course you do.

I mean, lately.

Like: in the not-so-distant past and all that.
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Recently even!

To me, questioning and even stating opposition to a candidate based on documented actions or opinions is fair game, but attacking a candidate without specific points to make is bashing. Also, when the points are either lies, or are so vague as to be meaningless, they aren't valid, and it becomes bashing.

Just a quick and no doubt flawed definition there. :) But how about a few made-up examples, for the heck of it? Let's pick Hillary, since she's the favorite target of honest disagreement and of bashing.

I would say it's bashing to say "Hillary can't win because too many people hate her." It's not bashing to say "Hillary's poll numbers amongst independents are low, which means she will have a hard time winning the election." Bashing: "Hillary is a Republican/DLC shill!" Legite: "Hillary's support of NAFTA is too conservative."

Stuff like that. I could do that for any candidate, I'm not picking on Hillary. She's one of my top choices.

Again, just my opinions.

As for a defense of Edwards, I just wrote something, even though Edwards is far down my list of preferred candidates. It's pretty long, but everything I write is. You should hear me talk! :rofl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=801722&mesg_id=802788

This is exactly what I was talking about.

Good night!

I want to know about Edwards too concerning what he knew before he voted yes. I will never take him seriously as a candidate until I understand, and there is alot of people around here that feel the same way.
But- the real questions is - how are we ever going to find out?

Because, you know, you always get a quick response that way!

I agree with you, questions left unanswered are not going to sway me his way.

If you want a serious answer, contact the candidate. Do you lack critical thinking skills or what?

who get touchy when asked a difficult question....and instead of handling it with finess get bent out of shape for no reason? If so, good job; great example! :thumbsup:

This is what I had in mind when I started this post. My feelings are certainly solidifying.

Don't you give the poster enough credit to find the Edwards website? What's your problem, anyway?

you have examplified.

You don't want to know my problems, of that I am sure.

ha! Edwards, I heard you knew Bush lied us into war and you voted for it anyway. Why did you do that?

I'm sure we would get an honest answer:rofl:

Plus, you'd never get him on the phone anyway.

The obvious is missed on many.

Or, don't.

It's your call.

It surprises me that someone would come on and immediate attack a candidate, and refuse to even confront that candidate first.

night on DU.

I picked up on that early on with you and have respected it ever since.

Now there's thiss 2008 election coming up. I propose we demand that the Republican Party dissolve and apologize to the nation.

And if they won't do it, I propose we kick their sorry butts!

Thank you for the energy and encouragement tonight, and you hang in there!

We'll tax them at 50% for what they've done to this country and put them in stocks for four hours a day.

We'll let them do a 20 page write up for every man, woman, and child, they enabled this president to kill.

And that's only the beginning.

I'm into far more than kicking their sorry butts.

Got to go now. Thank you, kind sir.

1. Members are expected to be generally supportive of progressive ideals, and to support Democratic candidates for political office, and posters who fall short of this expectation often veer from questioning to bashing;

2. Members are expected to treat other members with respect and avoid personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum, and posters who fall short of this expectation often veer from questioning to bashing;

3. Members are expected not to post messages that are inflammatory, extreme, divisive, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate, and are expected not to engage in anti-social, disruptive, or trolling behavior, and are expected not to post broad-brush, bigoted statements, and posters who fall short of this expectation often veer from questioning to bashing.

Andrew_Lindsey, it might depend on who the candidate is. Some supporter groups, such as Clinton's or Richardson's, or now Gravel's, just as examples, are more than willing to take the time to answer questions, explain policy positions, and provide substantiating links to an argument. In fact they will do it again and again and again, because they want the information out there.

In the four years I've been on DU, actually, that's how it worked. Even if it was a small group of supporters, they would work their asses off to educate DUers about their candidate. Before Kerry took it home in Iowa, for example, his DU supporters battled night and day for him here and they weren't a large group. But they were invariably courteous and rational and willing to explain their candidate's record and what convinced them and by that practice convinced others. Edwards had a miniscule group of supporters back then, (and one of them turned out to be a Freeper), but those hardy few never dismissed questions or challenges. Never. The main Edwards supporter was named "AP" and everyone on DU knew if something came up they wanted to know about Edwards, AP would provide a thoughtful analysis and argument. You were never required to agree, if you didn't, but to hear it out fairly, and take it into account before making a final judgment. The Dean group was very large and combative, as was the Clark group. In both cases, you might have to fight your heart out, but you did it with rational argument backed up by links to substantiating information. If you didn't provide those links, you were considered to have no argument.

That was how it worked back then. It was taken for granted that on a political discussion board, you discuss politics and politicians. In a primary you discuss the pluses and minuses of whoever was running, vetting the candidates for the nomination in the exercise of due diligence. This doesn't mean it was all sweetness and light in 03-04, God knows. And some posters will simply post lie after lie, again and again. It becomes tiresome to keep responding, but really, what's the alternative? If you withhold your knowledge and experience and judgment, you starve political discourse and you don't serve your candidate at all well.

This time around, it's become stylish to not answer questions, to hijack threads with irrelevant jabs, or to divert attention away from the point of the thread with nonsense posts; the purpose of which is to stifle open discussion and to provide as little information as possible, or to air misleading information. Other times it's simply to get a thread locked as a flame war so that it sinks out of sight. Responses can be "Look it up your own fucking self!" or "Dem-hating Freeper Scum!" or "I'm not doing your research for you!" or, as we have seen in this thread, "Call the campaign office." Read the puff pieces posted several times a day. Whatever you do, don't ask questions.

I think it's a sorry state of affairs, myself. When the time comes that we have a nominee, we want educated and prepared supporters. We're not going to have them if open discourse and critical thinking are cut out of the primaries. The aim should be truth. Just because somebody asks a question you might not want to answer or posts something you don't want known about your candidate, doesn't make it "swiftboating." That would take a lie and lying OPs deserve a swift kick off the board. But as long as there is truth, we should talk about everything having to do with our candidates and our party. That's how we make informed voting decisions. That's how we vote for the strongest candidate we can find.

I say, don't give up. Keep asking questions until you run out of them.

So good in fact, I'm saving it.

I've only been a member here for a year, so it's good to know that some things I've heard about the 2004 primaries aren't true. I expect the climate to get hot around here, but if facts are presented to back up opinions, it's all good.

Great post!

edited to say I hope things return to "the way we were" when obfuscating and name calling weren't substitutes for good debate!

I clicked it on to my Journal. Who knows? Maybe there are others out there who feel as we do.

Seems this new style is more akin to the Republican way of doing things than the Democratic way. Hopefully, it's just a fad. We have a great group of candidates with lots of pluses and some minuses ~ should make for great discussions!

It does have a really Republican feel about it, doesn't it? All of the attacking the messenger and ignoring the message, no matter how legit it is, the name calling, the diversion away from the topic, the attempting to shut down discussion...I imagine it's pretty much the way it feels in the White House should anyone dare to question Bush. Do people really think it's such a great way to be that they want to emulate that?

I can't imagine why a candidate supporter would respond that way rather than actually answering the criticism unless they knew nothing about their candidate or they knew enough to know there was no defense.

The idea that we're not supposed to be able to question or criticize or discuss anything less than adoring about certain Democrats, but only certain ones (It's fine, of course, for someone like Hillary to be bashed....Although I'm in no way a Hillary supporter, I know hypocrisy when I see it, especially when it's extremely blatant.)....it really doesn't belong on a Democratic board. These are supposed to be DISCUSSION forums, after all, not cheerleading forums.

being lied to, so who sez BushInc wouldn't be lying to the Intel Dems?

Durbin is saying they knew some of it was lies - but overall, the senators were STILL being told by Powell other things that they all believed.

He, like most other politicians, made a bad political move in an attempt to not be seen as the "passive" "anti-war" "unpatriotic" crowd. At that time in the US with 911 still reverberating in the soul of the country, the media, the American people and the politicians smelled blood in the water.

Edwards, like many other Democrats, made the decision to not make waves for fear that they would lose any political clout they had and given the mental state of our country at the time, I can understand his choice. I do not agree with it though.

Does this make him a bad person, politician or leader? Well, I think it only fair to look at the person in the totality of their experience rather than one singular event that could have turned out much differently if the war was a success.

to not be seen as passive or unpatriotic. There were other amendments that the Jr. Senator could have voted for that his fellow Democrats did. But he chose not to. Instead he co-sponsored Lieberman's Resolution, and he gave a stirring speech in support of it. He was a hawkish hawk, when all he had to be was a concerned dove.

/spelling

but I think it has more to do with gambling that the war was going to go "successfully". Unfortunately for him, the war was a total bust and he is paying the price for it.

I consider it agressively For!

But I still believe that their thinking was fear of political failure if they were wrong. So Edwards, like others, became a lemming.

This isn't the best place to get honest discussion about the candidates unless you're wearing a cup.