While I share your feelings regarding Edwards dropping out - just a little reminder

excuse me for one moment while I put on my flame-retardent suit...

ok - that's better now

While we have been busy flaming each other over our respective candidates, we've lost sight of something. Over the past 2 months I've seen more posts about people leaving because they've been flamed, or not voting because their candidate dropped out.

yeah, the SELECTION ain't that great - it wasn't that great at the beginning, and it ain't great now. But this is what we got.

This is only the primary, it's a practice war game. The real war starts once we have a nominee.

so what have we lost sight of?



if we kill each other who will kill this?

don't vote and let the repubs win/steal it again.

I already voted early for Edwards in California. Will my vote even count?

I'll vote for the Democratic candidate in November. I would even vote for the proverbial "yellow dog" over any of the Repiggies.
It doesn't seem very likely that enough other people will though.
McCain is already tied or winning in matchups against both our candidates despite very low approval ratings for Bush** and the Repigs.

The Repiglickin' media is in love with McCain, of course, so they will give his campaign at least as much help as they gave Bush** in 2000 and 2004.

Then there is Diebold and the rest of the Repiglickin' election stealing machine.

Against this we are running the weakest candidates in living memory.

It doesn't look good for us.

it's still a vote for him, and yes he'll get credit for it

worst case scenario - your vote will register as disapproval for the other two

why do you think Perot managed to get 17% of the vote in the '92 general election - because people did not like the other two choice - Poppy bush and bubba

I look at McCain as the Republican's weakest candidate.

No one who wants a Congressional insider will vote for him. No one who is sick of Iraq will vote for him. No one who wants a candidate with dark hair will vote for him. (Haven't seen a candidate with shock-white hair in a long time.)

I think Obama could take on McCain just because they seem so diametrically opposite.

I will certainly admit that I would consider Clinton and Obama as absolute long-shot candidates, and if the race was against an incumbent, I'd already be weeping. However, I do wonder if anyone would have been considered a "strong" candidate. From day one, I didn't see any. I saw candidates with great credentials, but no machine... sadly, that does not equal "strong".

Now... about McCain... it is AMAZING how many Republicans don't like him. He may rack up a lot of high power endorsements, but the question is - will that bring Republicans out to vote? Every 4 years, more and more old school Republicans die off...

I'm just not convinced that McCain is unstoppable. The question for me is whether we will abandon the "niceties" and attack with kind of fury that the Republicans used against Kerry. "Not Fit for Command", just by it's title, did a LOT of damage.

How badly do we want to win???

It is quite impossible for us to attack them the way they attacked Kerry. We don't own the TV networks. They do. Swift boating works for them because the Mighty Slime Machine
treats every bad thing that is said about our candidate as "news", and repeats the charges endlessly, even replaying the entire ad over and over for FREE and calling it "news".

We don't get to do that. We have to pay up to a million dollars for every minute of favorable airtime, and some stations will not accept our advertising at any price. If the "news" programs mention our ads at all, it only to bash them and demand that we apologize. Even if we out-fundraised them by 10 to 1, it would not make up for that.

and if they don't cast their vote for another candidate, thats just stupidity on their part. People got to move on and not tet the outcome of elections fall in the hands of others.

Which of the remaining candidates would you most like to see with the nominee? Go vote for that candidate.

I strongly disagree with the "selection". What we have are two GREAT candidates in Clinton and Obama. We are lucky to have two highly Presidential candidates battling it out. And to make it even more special, one is an African American, The other a woman!!! We could go either way and have a great President. And then look at who the Republicans have. Mccain? Now thats a joke. lol.

Perhaps people won't realize just how Presidential Clinton and Obama actually are, and how lucky we were to have two such candidates battling it out in one presidential election until its to late.

I really, honestly, truly don't care at all which one is the nominee. They both suck equally. So I'll caucus uncommitted on 2/9, and vote for whichever one gets the nomination in the General.

And that's that.

I don't know how many Edwards supporters said they weren't voting for the nominee, but I'm betting it's an eensy weensy minority.

I won't not vote in the General (I will, however, drop double negatives like a madman).

any. I felt much the same way about your candidate. When it came right down to it, I simply didn't trust him- on several levels.

I appreciate your response. I wish I could feel any enthusiasm at all toward either Clinton or Obama. I simply don't. I don't see either one as a leader, as an inspirational figure, or as someone I could put my heart into supporting.

That's a strange place for me to be in, politically. In 2004, even though I wasn't the world's biggest Kerry fan, I think my loathing for Chimpy McCokefiend fed my fervor. On the other hand, I really believe that it will take a colossal, massive, earth-shattering screw-up by the Democratic nominee to lose this election.

Anyway...that's where I am. Good luck to Obama, and to Clinton.

I wanted Fred Harris or Mo Udall. When they lost, I gravitated to Gene McCarthy who was running as an independent but I eventually came back to the party and voted Carter.

Today that hick moderate-conservative governor is one of my heros.

Sometimes people grow into the office. I know I'll be voting for our nominee.

If I don't show up to vote, I'm sure Diebold will figure out a way to use it. Come to think of it, they probably will whether I vote or not.