Clinton and Obama should continue until the convention; here's why:

[Corkey Mineola]

1. Howard Dean should lead the party and fend off attacks from McCain in the meantime.
2. Dean can enroll surrogates to also slam McCain.
3. Our first business should be to keep McCain tied to the miserable failure Bush.
4. Bush's continued presidency is an infomercial for failure

Both Clinton and Obama have strong merits and should be allowed to compete through to the convention
Neither will amass 2025 so if the superdelegates need to decide based on the merits of the candidates and the good of the party... so be it.

Robust, even argumentative debate, is GOOD for democracy and good for our party.

Rock on Barack!
Rock on Hillary!
Rock on Democrats!

[angie_love]

1. Not going to work

1) The press isn't paying much attention to Dean, when hes attacked McCain it went largely ignored
2) McCain is thrilled this race is continuing b/c it buys him time to get a head start on his GE. He will use this oppurtunity to define Obama and Hillary while theyre still duking it out.
3) Hillary will continue the attacks, but it won't be against McCain. I hope she will but thats doubtful.
4) This is hurting us way more than you realize. In 2004, Kerry was unable to fend off attacks b/c by the time he spent money to defend himself he was already defined by the repugs. This is happening already. McCain is seen as the "war hero" while Obama is seen as "unexperienced" and Hillary is seen as "polarizing, divisive"

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Yes, Clinton and Obamas sinking poll numbers vis a vis McCain is secretly good for the Dems

The higher Hill's and Obama's negatives go the better off we all will be come Novemebr.

Brilliant idea.

We can pretend Dean is our candidate until we Dems figure out just what the hell we are doing.

[NC_Nurse]

3. Debate might be good for us. Mudslinging is not.

This is not honest debate.

[Corkey Mineola]

4. then let's make it honest

and cease the mudslinging

[NC_Nurse]

7. I don't think it's up to just you and me. Believe me, I'd be glad to.

I doubt it will stop. It worked for Hillary, why should she stop?

[Corkey Mineola]

9. yea i see your point

I want to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt and hope she doesn't stay negative
it's a limited strategy that she can't sustain effectively through June.

I also don't want to overplay the negative ads as a factor.

I think Ohio is hurting big time and folks supported her because they are very worried about the economy and remember better times with Bill Clinton.

[earthlover]

5. Somebody has to sit both Obama and Hillary down and end this negative campaigning

If this is going to go on for 2-3 more months, we can't destroy each other or there will be no point.

It is going to take someone getting them both together and forcing them to end the negative stuff. Otherwise Hillary will continue going negative, seeing how it worked in Ohio and Texas among voters who decided late. And even though Obama has run a by comparison positive campaign, he would likely turn negative too if Hillary continues the scortched earth policy.

I feel very strongly that, if either Hillary or Obama go negative from here on out, we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning in November. It would be tragic for us to blow such an opportunity to not only win but get large majorities in Congress. It could be a transformational election. Instead, it is very likely that we are going to blow it all. MCCain wins the White House, Republicans take back control of Congress.

[Corkey Mineola]

8. fully agree

negative is a losing strategy

if it kept her in the race last night that should be it for now...

[Sir Jeffrey]

6. No...

Essentially, your argument allows for the top 2 Democrats to destroy each other for the next 6 months, then turn around and try to attack John McCain for the last 2.5 months of the GE.