This is about winning. Not about your candidate or mine.

[ElboRuum]

I was watching "A Scanner Darkly" the other night and I am reminded of Charles Freck's botched suicide attempt as he hallucinates the "Pan-Dimensional Reader of Sins with Many Eyes and a Voice More Soporific than Ben Stein's".

"Your sins will be read to you constantly and for all eternity."

I assume that DU reached the 6th grade discovery of masturbation?

Yes ladies and gentlemen, avatars and asshats, children and garden slugs of all ages, we are in the throes of our sins-reading and it is starting to look and sound like Freck's impressive and lengthy dossier of pubescent self-gratification.

I see the remnant skirmishes about which candidate was the bigger sexist/racist, I see the purveyors of foulness on one side having the nerve to be holier-than-thou with the purveyors of foulness on the other, I see fecal baseballs thrown from just about every corner and hear the WHAP!...THUD as they come in for an abrupt landing.

Who's the bigger victim? Irrelevant.
Who ran the cleaner campaign? Uninteresting.
Who can't hold their nose and vote for opponent's nominee? Can't be dignified with response.
Who won? Lacking in import.

Wait... what? Who won is unimportant?

Why, yes. Yes it is.

When you win, you win something, correct? The only thing you "win" in the primary is the right to participate in another election. If we believe in democracy, flaws and all, the people decide who this person will be. Not you. Not I. We.

Here is my feeling on the matter:

I pledge to vote for Hillary Clinton if Barack Obama does not win the nomination.
I pledge to vote for Barack Obama if Hillary Clinton does not win the nomination.

I will do either without wrinkling my nose as if a constipated elephant blasted three days worth of pent up ass-gas into my face.

Why? Because the only thing that matters is seizing control of this country's politics away from a philosophy of contempt, a philosophy which cares not for the people but for the principles of control and forced relevancy. And in order to do that, We must win. Then, on November 4th, and only THEN will who won matter, because that's the win that gets to count for something. A four, perhaps eight year something.

So, please. Let's stop the reading of the sins. Let's give rest to the sniping and the verbal assaults. Let's put down the poo, and let it remain unflung. Let's allow this primary to end peacefully and in its good and necessary time, and try to show each other the respect we know we want and deserve from each other, regardless the outcome.

There's the olive branch. The rest is up to you.

[ccharles000]

1. I agree we must win.

[unkachuck]

2. ....

[Speck Tater]

3. Absolutely. Remember what Bill Clinton said to us Deaniacs all those years ago.

It's all right to fall in love with your candidate before the convention, but after the convention, you need to fall in line behind the candidate.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. And if I happen to believe that one of our candidates believes in

"a philosophy of contempt, a philosophy which cares not for the people but for the principles of control and forced relevancy."?

Then, winning this primary is of just as great an import as winning the GE.

And I do believe that.

[ElboRuum]

5. Which one do you think that is?

I'm seriously asking.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. You can make your own guess - I don't choose to be blatantly divisive.

But if that candidate's supporters continue to push I WILL push back, because I believe this primary fight is a fight for the soul of the party.

I'm NOT ready to make nice.

[ElboRuum]

11. Please. BE blatantly divisive...

It is a far sight more honorable and honest than being coyly or stealthily divisive. This is not about the evil that doth not speak its name, here. If you have something to say, then say it and be unburdened by the act.

Both candidates supporters have been guilty of crimes against civility, rationality, and good ol' fashioned common sense. To compare them to determine who committed the greater evils is a pointless struggle to point a finger of blame whose sole purpose is to be completely irrelevant to the task at hand.

If you wish to be pugnacious, so be it.
If you don't want to "make nice", so be it.
If you feel like you've been made the victim of verbal assault, so be it.

Because all of these things are just SO helpful to what we're trying to do here. I've never personally found pugnacity or victimhood to be particularly valuable when the idea is to make progress. I mean, sure. Maybe you'll smite your "enemies" with caustic invective and pat yourself on the back for your shoot-from-the-hip verbal smackdowns. And you'll feel better for it. Well, at least until November 5th when you find out that we lost again because we spent more time in intraparty conflict than focusing on the opponent apparent while he solidifies his voter base.

So please. Furrow your brow. Steel your resolve. Fight the "good" fight you aren't nearly ready to make nice about. Then spend the next four years cursing and swearing about how we lost. Everything.

I'm not your mom and dad, I'm giving you no orders. I don't want the former's job, nor am I in a position to do the latter. But you can either bury the hatchet in the ground or in your opponent's heads. The decision is yours, but each has a consequence. One leads to a November victory, the other does not. I leave it to you to decide which is which.

[bluesbassman]

6. And if I happen to believe that one of our candidates is a

"glad-handing grifter with a gift for almost always saying the right thing at the right time, a $100 smile and a $1,000 suit". I'm still going to vote for the Democrat nominee in the GE.

See how clever we can be to keep this divisiveness up? I sure hope they keep the GDP forum up all the way to the GE, that way we can all just keep giving each other nice paper cuts and pour lemon juice on the wounds. And just for those with exceptionally sensitive skin: :sarcasm:

[ElboRuum]

7. Truly unfortunate...

Apparently, some people must be allergic to olives.

[bluesbassman]

9. Elbo,

I hoped I was clear that I was making a point to post #4. Your OP was very clear about bringing this party together to win in the GE. In every OP such as your's, someone has to say: 'But!, but!, your candidate did this, or your candidate said that'! The implication being that there can be no reconciliation. I usually don't respond to such remarks, but I guess I was a little worn out tonight and reacted. I will endeavor to let those drop in the future.

[ElboRuum]

10. I was making a little humor there...

Sympathizing with your point that some people do in fact do not "accept the olive branch". Sorry if I was unclear. It is human nature (for some reason I can't fathom, simply because it so often works against us) to not let go of our hangups or bring an end to a conflict in which we are personally engaged and invested. I hope the poster you responded to ultimately understands this and can allow him/herself to see the bigger picture as to what we should be trying to accomplish, rather than fomenting divisiveness by continuing to harp on the foibles of one particular candidate or another.