McCain folks and other Republicans are running scared
It is obvious that the Democratic Party is rapidly unifying. All the signs are there. Hillary Clinton deserves much of the credit! It has now become clear that the most offensive alleged Clinton backers posting on the Internet were never really Clinton supporters. As many people know, Rush Limbaugh launched a major disruption campaign designed to divide Democrats called "Operation Chaos". He urged his listeners to pretend to be Clinton supporters and create chaos in the Democratic Party. I recognize some of the Free Republic.com wingnuts who are Limbaugh fans posting here pretending to be Clinton supporters. They really are just Internet political terrorists. They are really frightened by the excellent prospects for huge Democratic gains at all levels this November. There is no dirty political tactic that these enemies of honest political discourse would not use! Real Clinton supporters would never support an openly anti-Choice candidate like McCain. The Supreme Court Justices that McCain would appoint are exactly the kind of Justices that Bush appointed. McCain would continue to cut funding to equal opportunity programs for women and minorities. McCain would continue the Iraq War. McCain would oppose almost every single idea supported by Hillary Clinton during her campaign. Obama would support almost every single major idea Clinton supported. Democrats want more jobs. Democrats want universal health care. We want open government. We want less influence for lobbyists and huge international corporations. We do not want oil companies, HMO's and drus companies running our government. Democrats want to de-politicize the Department of Justice and the federal courts corrupted by the Republicans. Democrats want to address the high cost of a college education. We want to really promote alternative energy. We want to attack price-gouging by large corporations. We want to rebuild our economic infrastructure before it is completely collapses. McCain will only continue the failed policies of the Bush Republicans. He is no longer a reformer (if he ever really was one). McCain voted with the Bush White House over 95% of the time since he started his White House bid! Democrats are not idiots. We do not want a third term for Bush by electing a "McBush". We want to control both the House and the Senate. We want our government back and are uniting to get it back!
Only a Republican pretending to be a Democrat would fail to follow her leadership in this situation.
this is a strange response folks.
You are nothing but a Republican pretending to be a Democrat. You should start posting the Free Republic.com site or the RNC site.
You are not supporting our Democratic ticket in November. You are not a Democrat. I have read hundreds of your posts designed to create chaos and disunity among the Democratic activists here. Your efforts are clearly designed to help John McCain and the rest of the Republican ticket in November.
The person posting already stated on other posts that they were not going to support the ticket and opposed Party unity.
The tactics are real and clearly document.
I repeat that your post does not make any logical sense.
His campaign never made the attacks on Clinton's daughter.
The Obama campaign never even accused Clinton of any crime much less pronounced her guilty of one.
Where did this stuff come from? This is all just crazy nonsense. I am sorry that somebody has been feeding your lots of falsehoods and totally bad information. I am even more sorry you believed those lies. They are lies.
In any case, if you want to support Hillary Clinton (as you have said), GET ON HER BANDWAGON and support Barack Hussein Obama. I am positive she will be an important part of his administration.
Why on earth would any real Democrat (not the fake ones like some who are posting about this issue) vote for McCain?
We may have started on separate journeys – but today, our paths have merged. And we are all heading toward the same destination, united and more ready than ever to win in November and to turn our country around because so much is at stake."
Limbaugh really wants McCain and only McCain. He wants to create chaos and confusion. Ignore him but be aware that many of the alleged Clinton supporters here who say they are going to support McCain are his fans. They were never going to support the Democratic Presidential candidate in November regardless if it was Clinton, Obama, Biden, Dodd, Edwards, Richardson or anyone else!
Democrats are not idiots. Only an idiot would believe in what Hillary believes in and still vote for McCain.
The idea that Clinton supporters in large number are going to abandon her and the Democratic Party is just absurd. It should be dismissed! It is not going to happen!
Only a Republican pretending to be a Democrat would still be trying to sell that crazy idea.
There are plenty of ideas on his campaign website. Please visit it.
They are stated above in the article you are commenting on.
You are just trying to launch personal attacks on the Democratic Presidential nominee based on nothing factual.
McCain has no universal health care plan and no plan to start removing troops from Iraq.
The 33% number you cite is not based on facts. Go to his site and read his health care plan for yourself.
Why are you trying to undermine our Democratic nominee with false statements on his positions and policies?
Intentionally or not, you are repeating lies about Obama's campaign, positions and policies. Either get the facts straight by researching his positions directly from his site so you get them right or stop posting about them.
You are hurting the Democratic ticket by repeating bad information. I am sure that is not your intention.
www.barackobama.com
McCain has never made a similar statement.
The truth of the matter is that McCain, if you research him more, is a dummy for lack of a better term right now. You may think Obama is too inexperienced, but the man is smart as a whip. He and his team did what no other has done, including the republicans. He beat the Clintons.
McCain does not understand the economy and he really does not understand foreign affairs. Really he does not or he would not be advocating to continue GWB's policies in the Middle East.
They are not working.
You will find plenty of ideas.
"Ronald Reagan sent Limbaugh, a man he never met, a letter in which he thanked Limbaugh "for all you're doing to promote Republican and conservative principles..."
"Limbaugh imitated on the "DittoCam" (the webcam for website subscribers to see him on the air) the physical symptoms of actor Michael J. Fox,"
Quite a guy!
Limbaugh was not making a statement about the Clinton campaign. He was just trying to infiltrate it to create chaos. He stated so publicly to his listeners. It was no secret. It was just another dirty Republican campaign trick. Clinton bears no fault in the matter.
The connection with Clinton was negative for both Clinton and the Democratic Party. Limbaugh has zero credibility among Democrats, little among independents and a declining credibilty among Republicans. His intentions were always evil.
If you have abandoned the Democratic ticket, you should stop posting here.
I agree with Stephen...TrueBlue has always sounded like a repuke.
Hillary would have won the general election.
Only a Republican would still be trying to defeat that nominee. If you are a Democrat who does not like Obama, tough. If you are supporting McCain, you should leave this site. This is a Democratic site.
I am not angry at all. I dislike cowardly Republicans pretending to be Democrats because it is dishonest and un-American.
Or you might be right?
So leave this site. It is a Democratic Party site. If you have left the Party, then leave.
I do not believe you ever were a Democrat!
Frankly, I was never a strong Obama supporter in the Primaries. My top choices were Edwards and Biden. Richardson was my third choice but I am a Democrat! Proud of it. I would never abandon my Party just because my first choice did not prevail.
I did not dtermine our nominee. 18 million voters did that! We call it democracy.
If you support Clinton and her ideas, you will support the Democratic nominee and the entire Democratic ticket!
If you're so convinced he cannot win (a minority opinion even among many Republicans) part of the reason that could happen is folk who are just mad at the process and how it played out voting against their own self interests. That is just silly, crazy, insane, something along those lines.
As for Obama, I contacted his office directly via email a few times. He has never taken the time to adress my issues like starving on disability, domestic violence, civil rights violations in my state for all races, or health care particuarily for victims of violence. So as I see it, to him, I do not count.
I cannot say that about Hillary. Inclusion of both for the WH is the only way I'll vote. Perhaps if they work together, everyone would count as Americans. I'm tired of being a disposeable commodity of the Bushinary vision.
Remember Nader defeated Gore in 2000. We got the Bush years as a result.
You can be part of the surge or not. It is your choice but your negativity will not infect the vast majority of devoted, loyal Democrats here or around the nation. We are going to win.
Exactly why are you blaming me for the unsuccessful Kerry campaign?
This kind of rhetoric is not helpful. It alienates people even before you have a chance to engage them with rational discourse.
It is, in fact, nothing more than an ad hominem. Stephen, you are generally an asset to the Democratic Party, but your tendency to employ fallacies to get your point across, or to silence those who would raise points that you seem incapable of beginning to understand, does the party a great disservice and could not be further from the spirit of Barack Obama's campaign.
I think you miss out on an important divide within the party at this moment: there are genuine Clinton supporters who currently see McCain as a better alternative to Obama.
While I agree with you that this stance of Clinton supporters is not well reasoned, I disagree with your browbeating them into submission. You will not convince them to rethink their current stance with these attacks.
Please tone down your rhetoric and put some thought into the arguments and sentiments Clinton supporters are offering for their stance.
I am not saying I agree with the thrust of these points, but their points are at least understandable and you adamantly refuse to try and see that.
I do not believe that a real Clinton supporter can see McCain as a better choice than Obama in the Fall. It fails all logic.
If A Democrat opposes the very idea of unifying the Democratic Party, they are really poor Democrats. The personalities matter very little over the ideas and policies involved. Personalities have little impact on our institutions or the ways we live in comparsion to policies or ideas.
At worst, these operatives of the Republican Party are agent provacateurs - not terrorists. (Link
I think it is a greater failure of your strength of reason that you refuse to try to understand defecting Clinton supporters.
With nothing better available to you than the "no true Scotsman" fallacy (no true Clinton Supporter / No true democrat) (Link, you repeat this position ad nauseum and if that doesn't shut people down, you attack the person or just pooh-pooh their argument.
Your entire approach is based on fallacious reasoning and this is surely no way to engage in rational discourse.
I believe that there are Clinton supporters who are considering voting for McCain (I'm not yet convinced that they WILL, but they certainly are considering it or saying they are of that mind now).
How can we engage them without alienating them?
If you continue to assert without base that they are just republican hacks, you are missing the boat my friend. And I think this really is a great disservice to the Obama campaign.
The DNC stops those behaviors here or they would happen. I have seen them happen. I have been on the receiving end of every example cited over the past 8 years.
It was only after those events did we at Democratic Talk Radio start calling the Freepers "Internet political terrorists."
Of course, not all the Clinton fanatics are Freepers and the vast majority of Clinton supporters are not fanatical. They are good Democrats who will follow her leadership in unifying the Party.
I admire Clinton greatly. I respect her more than most of the alleged Clinton supporters criticizing Party unity. This is why I doubt if they are really sincere in their expressions of support for her. Their actions are not consistent with her statements, actions or beliefs.
You don't have to fire a shot or explode a bomb to be a terrorist. It is the THREAT of the explosion that creates the terror. Since 2001, the Bush administration has been terrorizing the American people with outright lies, innuendos, and outrageous exaggerations trying to keep the American people afraid. THEY are terrorists. They also have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers in Iraq.
Is that what you want? More of Bush's policy with a man who may be Bush's intellectual superior (McCain) but who also has periods of confusion and is easily angered? It is also questionable about whether he really is that smart since he graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis. (I know a lot of people wouldn't even make it through Annapolis, though.)
I resent the statement that I do not put thought in my posts. That charge has no merit.
This reply of yours is a red herring.
These were my exact words: Please tone down your rhetoric and put some thought into the arguments and sentiments Clinton supporters are offering for their stance.
I do not say your post is done without thought, I do say that you are not thinking through the points Clinton supporters are trying to make.
One solid starting point for political discourse is the idea that one should attempt to make the case for a position with which one disagrees. In other words, making the weaker statement the stronger.
You do not attempt to see the issue at hand from the Clinton supporter perspective whatsoever. As a consequent, your attempt to persuade them will consistently miss the mark and in fact further alienate them.
I am sympathetic to your frustration with Clinton supporters threatening defection, but even my sympathy has limits - I won't support bad argumentation. And your argumentation is bad. If we take this thread as a guiding example, it is replete with fallacies. I've identified several in my posts already.
Let's honor Obama's campaign and change the discourse and cease scoring cheap political points, browbeating those who would disagree with us. Let's instead actively engage them. Attempt to understand their point of view and then reason with them - from premises they already accept - to conclusions that they should also want to accept.
Bludgeoning them with fallacies is not productive.
False posts were published that falsely stated Obama's position on Iraq and healthcare. These stated that they were just like McCain's which was false. It is no red herring argument or logical error to correct them.
Arguments were made that Obama's campaign had no ideas and employed "lies, intimidation and insults" routinely. These are untrue and needed to be corrected. These kind of viciuos personal attacks should not be tolerated by Republicans or Democrats. They call for a strong response.
You are obviously trying to take a high tone but actually are enabling those employing such tactics.
I believe that those posting this vicious anti-Democratic nonsense are not real Democrats. You can make all the excuses you want for them but their words speak for themselves.
They are carrying water for the other side (the Republicans) and do not belong here.
Your choice is Obama or McCain. McCain is just another third term for Bush Republicanism. Is that what you want?
The issue difference between McCain and Obama is huge.
The issue difference between Clinton and Obama is small. Hillary has stated this to be the case. Are you saying she is wrong?