"We are on the same side here, and we really should not
be attacking each other."

I completely agree. I wish someone would've told Hillary that when she decided to get nasty. I hate to sound like a little kid but, she started it.

Soon, however, Obama will finish it.

I am really glad Clinton told that story about the snipers in Bosnia. Really. Very glad.

Clinton is not a democrat she is a DLC democrat, there is a difference.

Greg I agree with your plea for civility.

I agree that sometimes Obama supporters (though not the candidate himself) fail to remain civil.

Both candidates seek the Democratic nomination, but Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are not on the same side and neither are each candidate's supporters.

Her tactics since before the South Carolina primary have convinced me that she is a poor choice for president. I consider her only marginally better than Senator McCain and I deplore her behavior during the primary.

I hope Senator Obama wins the nomination. I also hope he beats John McCain. If Senator Clinton wins the nomination, I will vote for her with great regret.

I think Hillary would make a terrible president. She'd run the country just like she's run her campaign - to the ground.

"Clinton is not a democrat she is a DLC democrat, there is a difference."
Posted by Mus-Hussein-Grove

Gee, the fact that her policies on health care, the economy, fixing the mortgage meltdown, etc., are more liberal than Obama's doesn't tend to support this.

He has been a great free-trader until he discovered he needed the votes of the working class to win.

He was pushed to the left in his policies by Clinton and Edwards (much closer to each other than to him), but I gotta wonder if he'll track right back to the center-right if he gets elected to the White House.

So, I step away from the computer to go work with my cultured cells and come back to see that the responses clearly indicate that I am naive beyond all telling. My apologies for starting what is clearly an ill-conceived thread. Clearly feelings are still far too raw for this sort of conversation to take place.

Not that I know any of you well enough to ask for a personal favor, but if you can see your way clear to it, might I ask as a favor that you not click the recommend button. I would like for this to die as quickly as possible, before it turns into a forum to inveigh against the new PA ad.

On another thread, I suggested a moratorium on posts speculating about how Obama supporters would react if Clinton is the nominee. She will not be the nominee. It's not a productive topic and only inflames the divisions that exist within the Party. In the same vein, the timing may be wrong to ask for conciliatory statements praising Clinton.

I very much appreciate what you're trying to accomplish, but the truth is that many Democrats have lost respect for the Clintons. I hope that they rebuild trust and respect in the years to come and make constructive contributions to the Party and the country.

To hell with Hillary.

Er, four years. Goddamn it.

Greg, it is getting late, the healing needs to begin ASAP. This WAS a very good idea.

it's a bit late in the day for this shamefully patronizing and ill-disguised needy ploy for votes. i can't wait to read this board in the late winter of '09 when pres. mccain signs a bipartisan immigration reform law in the wake of a 3-5 pt. win in CA and a nearly 100-electoral vote triumph over the erstwhile messiah, who by then would be the second coming of julian bond. as a post-terri schiavo agnostic, it's quite amusing to witness the hara-kiri collectively being performed by the democrats in a year when bush bashing should be a slam dunk. talk about karma for the political cowardice. it started with the smug petulance of barack hussein, who, in an election cycle when the dems have a basketful of potent issues, chose to run against the bill clinton presidency. not exactly a bill clinton fan here, but you lambaste the dem who could have won a third term just to spare yourself the effort to give specifics beyond rhyme upgrades over al and jesse? on second thought, given the lapdogs at msnbc, who personify the GOP (guilty overpaid) whites and the 90% bloc that are barack's core support, this is more like assisted suicide rather than seppuku. going through the obamaniacs' posts on this board i can see roger ailes and karl rove frothing at the mouth unable to curb their enthusiasm for the general. and they haven't even touched on grimacing michelle yet --lani guinier will look like lady guinevere by the time they're through googling michelle. i'm almost bitter to be on the sidelines on this one, but how fun!

Nice try, Greg.

Keep blogging and reminding people who the real enemies are, and what's a stake.

It may sink in.

:)

Join the club of us pull-together types.

Play nice, kids.

Hillary Clinton is an excellent Senator for the state of New York.

May she remain so.

For me, the problem is not that my feelings are still too raw for this conversation to take place, but that I have come to disagree with the proposition that Hillary Clinton would be a good President. I've reached that conclusion after a lot of thought and analysis. In the process, I've come to realize that I no longer will be satisfied with the equivalent of a return to the Clinton era. The Bill Clinton presidency was head and shoulders above the regimes that came before and after, but that was 8 years ago, and perhaps the Obama campaign has raised my standards. I don't want a return to the triangulating politics of the past. I also agree with much of Carl Bernstein's analysis. Hillary has a terrible track record of getting things done, and I question whether she has the competence, the judgment or the moral center to be an effective president.

I think I also disagree with the premise that Hillary has increased turnout. In the comments on another thread, s1m0n hypothesized that the strategy of the Clinton campaign has been to shrink, not expand, the electorate. I'm still mulling that one over, but I really do not see evidence that if Obama were not in the campaign, the turnout we have seen in this primary season would have been as high as it has.

"Obama is a democrat; Clinton is a democrat. We are on the same side here, and we really should not be attacking each other."

Greg, I disagree. First of all, the Democrats have proven that they are on the same side as the Republicans. Therefore I despise the Democratic party and have no loyalty to it.

Also, I consider Hillary a devious, dishonest person who has no business leading anything. I won't waste time trying to think of nice things to say about her. I consider Obama a better candidate, though still deeply flawed. He is the best of many evils so I voted for him in the primary and will vote for him in November if he is the nominee.

If only Carville would set the example.

I do not understand this - what is wrong with fighting for what you believe in? What is wrong with partisanship?

You start compromising everything you believe in to make peace and what are you left with?

This is why it's foolish to ask people like me to kiss and makeup with people who are screwing up my country. I am not going to do it.

I am a partisan. I have beliefs. If you don't share them, you aren't necessarily my friend. You might be, but you can't get me there by insisting that I have to.

This is a good post, even though many of our fellow Obama supporters are justifiably angry at Hillary and therefore unwilling to heed your advice right now.

The fact is that once Obama has the nomination, there will be many angry and, yes, bitter Hillary supporters, who will have to be cajoled and assuaged into doing the right thing in the fall. Obama and Hillary will have the most work to do in this regard but smart Obama supporters do so as well. This post is a good example of what we will have to do once this thing is over and you shouldn't regret writing it.

To pick up from Ben Hocking's post near the top of the thread:

6. She has taken a position on UHC which I would argue is to Obama's "left" and stuck to it despite being hammered on it from Obama. I say it is to Obama's "left", defining "left" on this as roughly equivalent to (take your pick on this) "committed to getting to UHC more quickly" or "being willing publicly to propose a plan which plausibly could move us towards single payer over time". I use the "left" construct not because I have anything invested in the label given that 70% of Americans want UHC, but because many here clearly do and indeed see the Base vs. DLC ongoing feud as about "left" versus "center" or even "right". People say the presidential candidates' health care proposals are meaningless because whatever Congress may do will not resemble them much anyway. Well, they are not meaningless. They come with a cost when you say them in public because you can and predictably will be attacked on what it is you choose to say in the campaign.

Obama hasn't been willing to say the tough thing on this issue, much as he has been willing to say the tough thing on many, many issues. Instead he has opted for what I consider a mild brand of demagoguery on this issue of crucial importance. There is nothing surprising or shocking going on here. This is what candidates do in contested campaigns. They seek to establish advantage over their opponents in various ways, which may or may not be demagogic and "fair". But, please, let's not pretend that Obama is the latest politician who is somehow above going for the somewhat cheap hit.

Although I am supporting Obama at this point I really do not appreciate his attacks on Hillary's mandate concept. I have real concerns about how to make it affordable for people who just do not have the cash up front to pay and then wait for the tax credit many months later. This has been discussed in Maggie Mahar's posts on several occasions months back.

But the basic concept (if and only if the concern about payment up front can be addressed), largely the one Edwards adopted as well, as to how to move towards first UHC and then a single payer system over time is one I haven't seen bettered to get to those goals within the political system and framework all of us are forced to deal with in the short run, at least. Would that any of us could wave a wand and change the system so that Senate filibusterers and powerful special interest groups are no longer so heavily advantaged in defeating health care reform. If anyone has an idea on how to do that that stands some chance of success, I am all ears.

Obama, meanwhile, irks me whenever he comes off as being hostile to the concept of a mandate, period, not just hostile to Hillary's specific mandate proposal. Perhaps a fellow Obama supporter can help me fill in the blanks as to how Obama's health care plan could over time get us towards, first, UHC, and then a single-payer financing structure over time? To me, he is our best chance and I have to hope he can and will evolve in his health care stance over time. But when I look at the substance of what he is saying on health care so far, I am disappointed to say the least, recognizing that if he believes he has to take this stance to get nominated and elected he could be quite correct and is after all placed to make that call in a way I certainly am not.

But how folks who've been writing in support of single payer in this particular forum, me included, can fail to give Hillary credit on this is something that, well, I do not understand.

7. I choose not to believe that a candidate whose passionate supporters include such thoroughly admirable fellow denizens as bslev, bevd, artappraiser (I am taking a bit of a leap there, arta, but please correct me if I'm wrong), billy glad (?), and maybe workerbee (who has remained uncommitted), (I'm sure there are others here who don't come to mind just now), as well as several of our friends, lacks any redeeming qualities. We have various names for people who are able to see other human beings as without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. We may say they are inhumane, rash hotheads who are capable in their fury of committing barbarous acts directed towards those totally unredeemed, and probably irredeemable, "others". I am not in favor of dehumanizing other human beings and try not to succumb to that quite human temptation in my own life. I don't see it as a helpful habit of thought to get into.

8. Although I am bothered by many of the ways in which it has been manifested of late, I think her tenacity is too often in short or at any rate questionable supply on our side. I don't question her toughness, in the sense of taking vicious hits over decades and staying in there. Yes, of course there is personal ambition as a huge factor. But is that not true of Obama or anyone else seriously running for president? With all the grief one has to go through how does anyone put themselves forwards and run as s serious candidate for the presidency without having a great deal of personal ambition?

Bruce is of course right when he maintains that Obama is a politician, no less than Hillary. He is a different politician and people can and do argue and disagree passionately about whether he is better suited or not to bring about progressive change. But he is a politician--of that there should be neither any doubt nor any shame. What we need are *good* politicians who are able to get good things done in a world where the deck is frequently stacked against those trying to do that. Ross Perot in '92 was the classic case of the aspiring politician who would have the voters think he was above politics, railing as he did against the (other) politicians who evidently were not. It's an age-old trope. The alternative in our system is to elect a dictator. No thanks.

I'm not so sure that any reconciliation can be brought about. There is this idea on both sides that their candidate is the innocent party who has been wronged by the other campaign.

I know you think you are helping, but in my view nothing makes me more frustrated than the chronic enabler. Nearly every post on here from you backs off from calling something as it is. I understand your attempt to constantly "mend fences", but I feel it doesn't help.
An inability to call people out when they are doing something wrong is what has gotten us into this situation. For the past 7 years there have been republicans that are reasonable people that have refused to call out George Bush because he is a republican. That is how I view the group of people, yourself included, that constantly refuses to call out senator Clinton when she does things that are despicable. The correct term for it is enabler.
I don't mean this to antagonize you, just to try to get you to aproach Clinton, Obama and other political figures from an outside perspective. Don't think of them as, "hey they are democrats they can't be that bad". View what they do and how they act and judge wether or not they are helping the dialouge, and how what they are doing (even in campaigning) affects the citizens of the united states. If you honestly do this and you are not extremely pissed off, frustrated, and sick of Senator Clinton's behavior thus far, I don't know what to say to you. If you see what has been going on, and just think it helps to always try to be the "good guy" that doesn't hurt anyone elses feelings.... you are wrong.

And I do think efforts like Greg's will bear fruit after Obama has the nomination, to mend fences with Clinton supporters. There has probably been some benefit in anticipating Republican talking points and getting early practice in responding to them, and Clinton herself may be accepted back into the fold if she campaigns vigorously for Obama.

As a die-hard Obama supporter if Clinton gets nomindated yes I will vote for her. We must beat McCain/McBush. Also, I think sometimes supporters make it personal, but for myself, it is not personal. I have nothing against Clinton supporters. My problems are with Clinton's platform, policy positions, actions etc. It is not personal, but about the ISSUES AND ACTIONS AT HAND. There are consequences to everything, and people get emotional etc when they or percieve something as unfair. People say the wrong things, make mistakes, are mean, sure it happens on both sides, Obama and Clinton supporters- but I think that everyone knows that McCain is who we have to come together against to DEFEAT in Nov 2008.

Respect is a hard word. I would still vote for her, but I honestly don't think I could ever respect her again.

You can dislike Hillary without calling her names and attacking her.

Like it or not, people judge Obama by his supporters. If you really want Obama to win, be respectful.

I completely agree. Minus the voting for her part. There was a time I would have...with no problem, even with pride. I'd never go over to McCain, but Clinton has so throughly lost my respect that I couldn't do it now or ever.

Per your wishes, I haven't recommended this thread. But I do commend it. Keep in mind that in this country, especially in politics, "agreement" is never unanimous. Things change because the number of positives slowly start to reach the number of negative, a tipping point is arrived at, and positives narrowly outweigh the negatives. If you look for an absence of negatives, you will be disappointed (as I have been in the past). But if you notice how many positive responses you've gotten, especially in contrast to how many most other non-attack posts get? Not bad, my friend. You have made progress.

Sadly, I'm currently at a place where I count it success if I can respond in a positive and respectful way about Senator Clinton more often than I respond in a negative or angry way. It is progress. But I know it's not what you're hoping for.

My complement for Hillary:

She wears jackets, which saves the people behind her from having to stare directly at her enormous butt. That shows good breeding, in my opinion.

Oh, and she clearly has good dental hygiene habits. Her fangs are very white.

Greg--here's a thought: convince Hillary and Obama to start saying nice things about each other. If you can do that, I think their supporters will follow suit. *:o)

Hey now! I have absolutely no respect for Clinton.

That said, inane stuff like "bush lite" is unhelpful and should be abstained from. Strawmen are bad. Poorly researched arguments are bad.

I would simply recommend the Obama approach: respond forcefully with the truth. If you can work some satire in there, the better.

Hey Greg, here's an idea: new post. Instead of asking Obama supporters to respect Senator Clinton (which is entirely impossible considering the level of disrespect she has for us), why not ask Clinton and Obama supporters to respect each other? Because that's really what you want, isn't it? Attack the candidates if necessary, but stop attacking each other? Because I could hang with that. It might take a little practice, but I'm pretty sure I could do it. Except for Matth...

Oh, never mind.

And there's always *if you can't say something nice...*, which is where I am. On to the next blog.

Clinton's entire strategy has been predicated on decreasing turnout, not increasing it. Luckily, she's been remarkably poor at executing this strategy.

I don't think this will die soon, and I hope not. I believe Senator Clinton will still be of great use for years to come during the Obama administration, both directly and indirectly. So for now and maybe a little while longer, let's keep an open mind about her "true" strengths.