Let 'em duke it out.

There are many calls now for Clinton and Obama to stop hurling insults at each other and focus on the issues. While that would be a good thing in the best of all possible worlds, it would do nothing to prepare a potential candidate to do battle with the Republicans--who I assure you--have no intention of focusing on the issues.

The '92 Democratic Primary was a long knock down drag out fight in which Bill Clinton's name was dragged through the mud. By the time he put down the last man standing, former California Governor Jerry Brown, voters knew that Clinton was a skirt chasing, draft dodger who had a dubious relationship to both the truth and to certain companies and wealthy individuals in Arkansas.

You know what, they voted for him anyway.

Sunlight and air have a surprising effect on shit (having been involved with horses my entire life I have ample experience with this phenomenon). When it's fresh it stinks to high heaven. Spread it and leave it out in a field and in a few days the smell has gone away and in a few weeks it's vanished into the earth where it helps to nourish the grass.

Al Gore was pretty much the designated nominee from the get go. Bill Bradley never laid a glove on him. John Kerry was essentially crowned after New Hampshire and never really had to duke it out. While you can argue that Gore actually won the election and that Kerry was the victim of fraud, the election should not have been close enough for George Bush to steal. Both Gore & Kerry thought that their stands on the issues would carry the day. Both were sadly mistaken. Both were also vulnerable to scurrilous personal attacks, I would argue, in part because they had not really been tested by their fellow Democrats.

I want a candidate who's battle hardened, one who knows how to give it out as well as take it. So far Clinton has proved a worthy warrior (I expected no less--it's about the only thing I like about her as a candidate) and Barack Obama is proving that he can git down and fight with the Big Dog in a way that I hadn't expected.

Sure, some things (such as race and gender) should be off limits, but if a candidate has an unseemly relationship with a contributer or dubious past business dealings, I want it out there now. Saying "Shush, don't talk about that, the Republicans might hear us" is absurd. They already have the dirt primed and ready to go. The question is, do we want them flinging fresh shit or old, rotted manure that has already turned into fertilizer?

The hate seething across DU these days makes me ill. So many people who don't seem to know who the real enemy is anymore.

Some people go totally overboard. The way I see it is that I'm going to end up voting for one of those jokers in the general election--I'm not going to allow myself to work up a hatred for a Democrat who's main fault is that he or she isn't the person I support.

The Supreme Court alone is a good enough reason to vote for whatever Democrat is nominated.

When I see polls here where people say they won't vote for Hillary or Obama under any circumstances, and would rather let the Republicans win, I think, "Well, I hope you like living under a radical conservative Supreme Court for the rest of your life. Guess you didn't really care about Roe V. Wade after all. Hope you like more wars, hope you or your loved ones don't get sick because there won't be any health care reform." On and on and on.

The candidates themselves do need to fight it out, but you'd think here, instead of forming a circular firing squad, we could be finding the best in all our candidates and supporting them, rather than acting like Republicans.

It's not manly, battle-hardening politics. It's disgusting and it turns people off on the process that they're supposed to be intimately involved in.

MSM pushing for Obama so unanimously - should give some of you pause.
I don't support either of them. But we all know who the fighter is.