Puke Politics Acceptable ??

What's your definition of acceptable campaign practices? Is trashy rovian style wedge politics, misrepresenting your positions and those of others ok in your book?

Where do you draw the line?

I don't have a problem with down and dirty politics. Whatever it takes to win. For example, I thought the Osama/Dean ad was perfectly acceptable.

The areas I think are off limits are family members of the candidates, or medical histories of them. These things should not be made a campaign issue. Also, I disagree with anything that is unnecessarily cruel or malicious. There are reasonable limits.

got your fire fighting suit on??

As Kerry says when he mocks Bush, "Bring it on!"

glad it got pulled

medical histories exposing severe mental deficiencies should be made available so as not to wind up with another bush.


retyred in fla
“Good-Night Paul, Wherever You Are”
So I read this book

Unless we all want to live in a world where there is no civility and we're all just in a free-for-all.

Also trash politicking is a major reason people don't vote. So there's probably some direct evidence that this kind of barbarianism is damaging to democracy itself.

To me, misrepresenting positions is the be all end all of trash politics. Whether yours or someone elses, once you're known as a liar, what's the point? You add to the 'all politicians are liars' CW and that's also damaging to democracy.

it's what has turned off a lot of voters...they end up thinking all politicians are the same

when talking about medicare, a certain candidate said the other candidates were "scaring seniors, like the Democrats always do."

I won't name the candidate, but he/she said it in an interview with PBS's Margaret Warner.

Curious... that's so RW.

MARGARET WARNER: Privately, he expresses frustration at Gephardt's attack.

HOWARD DEAN: He's scaring seniors with talk about Medicare, just like Democrats have always done.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec03/iowa_11-20.html

do tell....

but if you search PBS NewsHour's site for "scaring seniors" you'll get 5 hits on Bob Dole saying it to Clinton, and then you'll get the current mystery candidate saying it about his dem opponents.

And I'm guessing the phrase goes back further than Dole, back to Gingrich, maybe their archives don't go back that far.

#6 is the Dean interview:

http://www.pbs.org/search/search_results.html?q=%22scaring+seniors%22&btnG.x=0&btnG.y=0&neighborhood=none

It was his answer to Gephardt's pointing out that candidate's ACTUAL longheld opinion on that issue which run counter to his newer, primary claims.

another example of something I hate!! :evilfrown:

I just can't stand lies. And riling people up with hyperbole that is less than honest also annoys me. Maybe I've just kissed too many frogs that really were frogs, ya' know???

turned out to be a prince!

:kick:

This was posted by Tinoire on another thread.

Joe Trippi's creative, aggressive and quite frankly, dirty tactics were in full play while he was still campaigning for Mondale long time ago according to this article (http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=uPrIwAEG7fHpGFSjMCq7tR%3D%3D which I will snip below).

"We started really early in the day," Trippi remembers, reflecting on how he and an Iowa colleague named Tom Cosgrove solved their JJ problem. "They stopped about three miles out the staging area--the Mondale buses coming from Minnesota or wherever they were coming from." What follows is one of the most ambitious political makeovers in history. A team of Mondale aides, led by Cosgrove, plasters the bus with Cranston paraphernalia--stickers, posters, buttons, everything. Three miles down the road, the bus pulls up to the Cranston tent, where a Mondale/Cranston supporter gets out and tells a real Cranston aide he has 52 people on the bus. The aide looks up at the bus, surely admiring the military-like discipline that has brought a busload of Cranston supporters from "Los Angeles or wherever" out to the middle of Iowa this early in the day, and quietly congratulates himself. He promptly hands over 52 tickets.

"And it continues like this, through bus after bus of Mondale supporters: Stop three miles up the highway, lather the bus in Cranston paraphernalia, drive on to the Cranston tent, claim your tickets. And the Cranston campaign just keeps forking them over. Happily. Hell, the more buses that show up, the more impressed the Cranston people are by their own handiwork. Never does it occur to them that these busloads of supporters aren't the genuine article. At least not until the real Cranston buses start showing up. "Twenty buses pull up, and they're out of tickets," Trippi says, still amused at the spectacle almost 20 years later. "More Cranston buses keep pulling up, and they don't have the tickets anymore." Score one for Walter Mondale. "

the more I know about him...but in this day and age of cell phones..blogs and the internet...truth comes out faster

but it was pretty quickly clear that the "scandal" was bogus. Proof of that is that no one ever talks about it.

I heard the allegations but never saw the whole story or knew that some of the conversations were overheard. I guess people identify with the victim characterization of the whole campaign or something.

witnessed disruptive tactics. Interesting to read a detailed report like this. The, uh, victim sounds a bit familiar.

I got excited about politics this year is Clark doesn't play puke politics.

Of course there is the incentive to oust the shrub, but I do not think we will win against him with that kind of strategy.

don't think that style works anymore

I don't mind attacks as long as they are truthfull and not sleazy

Dem candidate.

This is indefensible and completely unacceptable.

before the NM debate and NOW you want to complain about something on a message board?

Sheesh. Rank hyp.

Did he carry it? Or did a supporter just show up with it?

He could have easily made that sign go away. He chose not to.

Dean labled Kerry and the rest Bush-lite...couldn't be more clear about how he felt about the sign

???

what about labeling other democrats bush-lite? Democrats like kerry for instance who has done FAR MORE for liberal causes than you know who.

BWA-HA-HA-HA...

do you support candidates that misrepresent their positions or those of the other candidates...or use rovian and divisive wedge issues to gain support??

I believe Kerry said Dean was "unfit" to be President when Dean pointed out accurately that we were no safer in US than before Saddam was captured. Kerry was suddenly pro-invasion again when Saddam was captured... until Ridge hiked the national threat level a week later. Then Kerry was against the war in Iraq again.

next??

Clark isn't a bad guy. He's run a decent campaign with only minor disagreements with other candidates.

Too bad you don't refect Clark's values. Clark would be the first one on these threads reaming out the tactics you and some other Clark supporters use.

that has no relation to the campaigns

try not to take it personally

My bad. Sorry.

Or was it Kerry? and Kucinich a few weeks before that? Not that it matters, it has clearly been ABD for some time.

and yes I like and support DK & Kerry too...but I think Clark has the best chance to win the primary and win the GE

Obviously I don't like Dean at all...

anyway..who I support has nothing to do with this thread...it's about whether puke politics is acceptable in a DEM primary

all the liars, especially Murdoc's empire of fithspewers. They are the foot soldiers of Rove. They start echoing the lies and hatred that Rove wants in the regular media, and soon that is all anybody hears.

Rove loves dirty tricks and hates democracy. Will do anything to shut out the truth or a different opinion even. How do we attack them most effectively is what I want to know.

not for others. Right?

Smear tactics and dirty tricks work for about a day or two at most. Then, after the shock wears off and the brains start kicking in, the attacker usually suffers. That's why all the dirt seems to pop up at the last second...just long enough to create doubt before the eyes turn on you.

I find the use of funny looking Hand Puppets as mock stand-in for one's opponents to be morally reprehensible and I will not vote for any candidate that uses them under any circumstances.

But my opinion of them will raise or lower based on the merits of the attack and whether or not it is fair criticism or a smear job.

common sense is all you need

If a campaign were to do something that was so beyond the pale, it will backfire. Look at the Dean bin Laden commercial. It had to be pulled because it was so obviously out of bounds.

or tune in to DU to see what Clark operatives say