Becoming the thing you hate

[TayTay]

I am struck by comments both in this group and elsewhere on DU about how much people hate the negative campaigning in the Democratic primary. The nature of the debate and the negativity of it is stealing energy and optimism from this race and down ticket races as well.

I wonder how some people are going to be able to go on when the primaries end. I have read comments from people from all the campaigns that cross a line and I wonder how they are going to be able to cross back and unite as Democrats. I have read of groups of supporters, again from different campaigns, who proudly proclaim that they will never vote for the eventual winner. I have heard some people say that they will actively work against the loser of the primary to make sure they lose their next race for the Senate or any other office.

Do people listen to themselves? This is so depressing. It sounds not like the tough talk of a campaign but like sore losers or sore winners who are putting their own personal interests above their own political goals. They can see no further than this primary. They are living in a bubble in which the only thing that matters is this primary. I find this to be one of the saddest things I have seen in politics. This primary race will end soon. What happens next?

Democrats as a group strongly denounced the idea of "swiftboating" a candidate. This ugly version of politics doesn't just demand a winner, it demands that the political loser in a campaign be broken, damaged and their entire career be dismissed and derided. That is the ugliness of "swiftboating." I denounce it because it corrupts the political process itself. This corrosive type of campaigning has horrific and damaging effects down to the very local level when good people decide that they can't put their family and friends through a run for local offices like School Committee seats because it could get too ugly. This threatens the very roots of American democracy which depends on people standing up and being active in politics.

There is a false argument out there that Democrats need to be just like the Republicans in order to beat them. I strongly disagree. There is a difference between fighting hard for a campaign and doing anything in order to win. I have no faith and no desire to join with people who believe that only the ends matter and that ethics and common decency are "quaint" notions that serious people laugh at. I will not become the thing I hate. I want to be able to unite with fellow Democrats at the end of this primary and work together for a better American. I do not want to see good people with great records of working for great causes beaten and bloodied and disdained. That is the thing I hate. I won't do it.

I end this post with an anecdote about the price of your own soul and your own values:

George Bernard Shaw once found himself at a dinner party, seated beside an attractive woman. "Madam," he asked, "would you go to bed with me for a thousand pounds?" The woman blushed and rather indignantly shook her head.

"For ten thousand pounds?" he asked. "No. I would not." "Then how about fifty thousand pounds?" he continued.

The colossal sum gave the woman pause, and after further reflection, she coyly replied: "Perhaps." "And if I were to offer you five pounds?" Shaw asked.

"Mr. Shaw!" the woman exclaimed. "What do you take me for!" "We have already established what you are," Shaw calmly replied. "Now we are merely haggling over the price."

I fear too many Democrats across the blogosphere are merely haggling over the price. That cannot be the legacy of 2008. It is wrong.