When Democrats fight, Bush wins

[Zuni]

Al Sharpton said that the other night. It is true. We have allowed our loyalcy to certain candidates and other issues to get in the way of the fact that we are here to beat Bush and retake our country.

Attacking Democrats makes Bush stronger. It is time to unite and remember we all have the same basic interest in defeating George Bush.

[realFedUp]

1. I disagree.

Discussion is the heart of democracy. We'll unite
when we have one nominee elected in the primaries.
No worries.

[Padraig18]

2. I *hope* you're right.

[Zuni]

4. Yes, debate and discussion is the key to a strong democracy

But we have a very important task, and we have to unite on defeating Bush, which should be our first priority.

[FubarFly]

3. I disagree to an extent..

We will only get stronger by learning how to fight. It's time this Party developed a spine.

Every informed Democrat wants to see b*sh go. When the time comes we will unite. Of that, I have no doubt.

I appreciate the wisdom of your warning however, we shouldn't ever lose sight of the real enemy, and no matter how much we disagree, we should always have our eyes focused on our common goal.

[roughsatori]

5. Republicans win when we are to frightened to argue with each other NT

[MuseRider]

6. At this point I disagree.

If we can't come together once we have a nominee then we will be in trouble. At this point I am encouraged by the firing up of this party. The problem later will be how we handle the shaping of our nominee. At this point, with so many getting into the fun I am afraid our poor guy will be getting so much advice it will be funny! I am also bit concerned about how we will handle it here.

[JVS]

7. When democrats refuse to face the issues within their party

the party dies

[Zuni]

8. not debating the issues

but full on attacks is what I refer to.

[JVS]

9. Issues get ignored so often that sometimes the only way to get attention,,

paid to that issue is to attack. Sharpton of all people should know that.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

10. There's a delicate balance

...between legitimate policy arguments and just plain personal attacks.

I'm a little torn on this issue. On the one hand, whichever candidate gets the nomination, s/he will be subjected to every kind of vicious smear you can imagine, and it will help our eventual candidate to get some practice facing that eventual reality.

On the other hand, I have very clear memories of when Geraldine Ferraro was one of the people running for NY state senate. During the primary season, Liz Holtzman went out of her way to discredit Ferraro, even going so far as to insinuate that her husband had mob ties. Eventually the smear campaign resulted in Ferraro dropping out of the race. Holtzman's plan backfired on her though, and her constant negativity and smears rubbed voters comletely the wrong way, resulting in her getting beaten in the primaries. But the point is that we ended up with a pretty lame candidate, and we got six more years of Al D'Amato as a result.

I don't have any answers to how to handle this one. I guess we just have to be more sensitive to the difference between healthy competition between the candidates and malicious attacks that serve no purpose but to "spoil" a given candidate.

[2cents]

11. I prefer a little sparring....

....between candidates so they can differentiate themselves and show their mettle. But they should stay away from the low blows and cheap shots.....save those for the title fight.