"Don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again, ever."

[incapsulated]

Now, before people make note of my well documented opinion that we here on DU have a right, if not an obligation, to criticize the Kerry campaign, let me make myself clear. What is said on an internet forum, with anonymous posters who represent only themselves, and are not surrogates, elected officials or other "Democratic Representatives" of the Party is one thing, what I am referring to now is quite another.

What we say amongst ourselves, should stay there. What concerns me greatly is the recent phenomenon of Democrats speaking, on the record, to the media about the state of the campaign in negative, critical terms. These are prominent figures in the Party, Congressmen and strategists and surrogates. And they are on my television and in my newspaper speaking about their "concerns" about the campaign and how badly things went in August and Kerry's "lack of a clear message".

And it infuriates me. This is feeding the new meme that the Kerry campaign is floundering and sliding off the edge. It is bolstering the media's fixation with repeating inaccurate, biased polls that "prove" that Kerry is losing. How in God's name does this happen?

Any prominent Democrat concerned with the campaign has only to make a call to the necessary people to voice their opinions. Anyone serious about getting Kerry elected does not criticize his campaign in the major media.

Who the hell is in charge here? Where is the leadership in the Party that should be controlling our message? We have had legitimate complaints about the lack of hard-hitting, consistent talking points among Kerry's surrogates. But this is worse. They are actually dissing him in the media now. This has to be stopped, right now.

(And once again, please don't try to blame this on DU'ers. We are nobody, and the media isn't getting it's talking points from us.)

[shoopnyc123]

1. Airing dirty laundry in public...

...ain't cool...

[asthmaticeog]

2. Curious subject line.

Are you suggesting that someone should whack Fredo?

[incapsulated]

3. If necessary. n/t

[Mr Blond]

12. You called?

[Poiuyt]

5. LOL!

Great movie.

Leave the gun...take the canoli

[incapsulated]

7. That used to be my sig line, hehe. n/t

[demokatgurrl]

4. Too right...

This has been ticking me off for a while. Every other day some stupid Democrat says something OUT LOUD and IN PUBLIC that cannot be helpful to Kerry. For example, someone (Bayh?) said the other day that if the issue is Iraq, Kerry cannot win.
Bob Kerrey wrote a great column attacking the Swift Boat Liars... until he got to the end and so conciliatory-like, called for an end to "ALL 527s".
Our Governor (Rendell) said, on the eve of Kerry's selection of Edwards, that he did not favor Edwards. (This guy is the former DNC chairman).
You do NOT hear Republicans talking like this. In fact, I think they have to call the "talking points hotline" before they utter a word in public. Ever notice how they all say the SAME EXACT thing? Jon Stewart points it out so well on his show. The Dems could learn from that. SOLIDARITY!!!!

[incapsulated]

6. If a Republican tried this

He would have to go into police protection. I'm not saying we should be that draconian, but can we at least not have our "representatives" help Kerry's enemies when speaking to the media?

[Nite Owl]

8. Wasn't it Reagan who coined the

11th commandment of politics: never speak against another Republican. They don't either. It shows a united front. The DNC is just about useless, totally unorganized. The faces that represent us on tv often don't know their facts. They should be a mirror of the campaign and saying things that Kerry can't instead of being mealy mouthed wimps. There are a few good ones but they are few and far between.

[demokatgurrl]

9. Unfortunately...

the best is in a hospital bed.

[incapsulated]

11. The Regan admin

Also understood the concept of consistant talking points, endlessly repeated. They had a new one every day.

When will we learn?

[ibegurpard]

10. Now that's the kind of "fall-in-line" call to action I can get behind.

:thumbsup:

[DeepModem Mom]

13. kick

[Tansy_Gold]

14. "We are nobody, and the media isn't getting its talking points. . . "

This is where I would take issue with you.

As was noted on another thread on another topic entirely a few days ago, the media DOES get some of its talking points from DU -- a DUer was quoted by some WSJ online-spinoff regarding the voting attitudes of registered voters during a door-knocking campaign. I didn't bookmark the thread and don't have time to hunt it up right now.

DU is not a private forum. We have uncounted lurkers who may very well be operatives from the dark side. We know the freepers regularly troll here, so why shouldn't the upper-echelon freepers make a practice of scanning for nuggets?

I don't think DU should suddenly start censoring posts that are critical of the Kerry campaign, its staff, or its message(s). I don't think we DUers should suddenly start censoring ourselves. I also know -- from personal experience -- how difficult it is to get a point across to some of the Kerry campaign staff and how often it seems they are totally unwilling to listen to anyone but their own egos.

I'm not sure what the solution is, and if I were, I'm not sure I'd post it here on DU! :D But I do think it is absolutely imperative, as these last few weeks of the campaign unwind, that we never let out of sight the fact that there is NOTHING private, NOTHING confidential, NOTHING sacred on DU.


Tansy Gold, who had to edit a smiley, for crying out loud!

[Julien Sorel]

15. I disagree.

And once again, please don't try to blame this on DU'ers. We are nobody, and the media isn't getting it's talking points from us.)

We are a thread in the fabric of public opinion. This place is watched, by the freaks at Free Republic, by media people, by ordinary people. When they see people here freaking out about something, it can have an impact. I don't know how much, but just the possibility of a negative result is enough that I censor my comments --just in case.

Another point: this place has a lot of activists, and potential activists. Those people are all like stones that go out and drop themselves in ponds and make waves. They are multipliers: their own vote, plus the votes of the people they influence. If they get discouraged by some of the crybaby shit that some people post here every day, then we all lose a lot.

Laying blame is for suckers. But responsibility -- that's a different thing. There are some people here who should look hard at what they really want. Do they want to make a difference, or do they want to whine and finger point?

By the way, there's an implied contradiction in your post. You say, "we are nobody;" yet some of the biggest crybabies here say they are just trying to get the campaign to listen to them and their words of deathless wisdom. If they are nobody, why bother?

[Clinton Crusader]

16. Complete agree incapsulated even though

Im an Islander fan :evilgrin:

We all know the right wing gets memos or something faxed to them each morning because during the course of the day they all say the same thing over and over and over, switch channels, go back and forth, turn on the radio, they are all on the same page. And they absolutely NEVER EVER go against the party, or have a doomsday attitude, and can spin a negative into a postive in a nanosecond.

When will the Dems learn? After 2000, I would have swore the party motto would be "Never Again' and be the most united front you ever saw. Guess I was way wrong.

In five years the Corleone family will be totally legitimate..
:kick: