Instead of tearing down Hillary Clinton...

[Jim Lane]

86. So you mean that, in this cycle, no candidate should run a "3:00 am phone call" type ad?

That ad illustrates the point that others have made in their responses. Elections are generally a matter of comparing two or more candidates. It's quite natural that the discussion will include pros and cons of each major candidate.

Hillary's status as the front-runner at this point is much clearer than was Obama's in 2008 when she engaged in tearing him down. If Hillary were now at single digits in the polls, she'd be suffering as much tearing down as Jim Webb is -- that is to say, virtually none. Do you think she'd want to be in Webb's position of not being deemed worth criticizing?

BTW, if you stop obsessing over posts critical of Clinton and look at the whole board with an open mind, you'll see plenty of positive comments about Bernie Sanders; positive comments about Elizabeth Warren from people explaining their support for the "Draft Warren" movement; and, over the last couple weeks, a growing number of positive comments about Martin O'Malley. Lincoln Chafee made his interest known more recently but there've already been a few posts about him (mixed positive and negative). Webb is generally perceived as being the most conservative of the bunch but even he has gotten some praise here.