friendly fire

by using this title, i can link together various semi-related topics.

Like Dick Cheney accidently shooting a 78-old friend from 30 feet away while the Abassador to Switzerland looked on. And then no one wanted to report it, except the campaign donor whose land they were on at the time 18-hours later. Oh and the man is still in intensive care. Much has already been said about this, and even my sleepy East High students knew about it and asked me what happened.

And now for the main thrust of my article, I ask that there be no more pieces from bloggers on how DINO one primary candidate is, and how the other is so much better, without laying out any policy positional differences. The number one offender of this is Michael in Chicago on MyDD. I have no way of judging other than money and polling at this point which candidate is better for Henry Hyde's seat. But just because the D-trip supports Duckworth over Celigis (sp?) doesn't mean that Duckworth is enherantly worse. There may be reasons to support Duckworth other than the fact that the bloggers liked the other canidate last time (fundraising ability, appealability to more voters, etc.). Same goes with Sharrod Brown and Paul Hacket.

I personally like Hacket in this one more than Brown, if only because Hacket got in first and didn't pretend like he wasn't going to enter the race only to enter in later. Brown just strikes me as more of a stereotypical pol than Hacket. Of course, whatever Ohio democrats decide is ok with me. Ditto for IL primary voters.

It is just completely unproductive to smear candidates without actually having any real policy discussion. I am fine with people not supporting Casey in PA because of his abortion stance, or is support of Alito (again on abortion most likely), but you can't deny that he stands the best chance against Santorum based on polls.

Again, go ahead and bash Lieberman and Cuegular (sp?) for their support of Bush policy's and contrast the differing positions of their oposition.

But don't bash John Morrison in Montana because the DLC named him as a new dem of the week (I did) or because he was a member of the DLC's 100 to watch a couple years in arow. The DLC supported Morrison because he looked like he would run for governor or senator down the road, and was vaguely in line with their political philosophy. I haven't heard much about Tester's positions other than his support by (1) Kos and (2) Pearl Jam. I like both, but that doesn't do it for me. Morrison supported ways of increasing health insurance coverage for Montana's children, he knows about water issues and western issues and can explain it to easterns in a way that will get positive changes made in Washington. Tester is an organic farmer whose district was republican in the state senate. That's about all I know of him. That, and as Kos points out, he has a donkey and the word "democrat" in his web banner. Who cares?

Oh and Morrison is currently polling ahead of Burns, while Tester is behind Burns (and Morrison has more money than Tester).

Whomever wins these contested primaries will need our support come November in order to have a chance of taking back either house of Congress. So please, if you prefer a candidate, state your reasons why in policy terms, not conspiracy/slur terms.