What's the problem with candidate bashing?

[Gringo]

Poll question: What's the problem with candidate bashing?

What's the problem with candidate bashing here at DU?

TRY to put your personal bias aside and answer honestly. Pretty please?


I do kinda wonder: If JFK was running today, would we be behind him, or would we be bickering like this?

[Jerseycoa]

1. Voted Other

Because I think at least half the problem is any critique of a candidate is often interpreted as bashing. What follows is a swarm of defend-attack-defend-attack and so on, instead of addressing the issues, proving or disproving. If a charge is true, defend against it with concrete argument. Same if it is false. But don't respond by attacking another candidate or letting hurt feelings get in the way of discourse. It's easy to fall into this trap and I've done it myself, unfortunately.

But if we try to put our positive arguments for our candidates in the responses to questions raised, instead of reacting, we all do better.

The other day there was a thread asking something like 1) what liberal causes has Clark fostered through action, and 2) since he has never held elective office why should anybody vote for him, or words to that effect, meaning he has no record to run on. Instead of taking it as a bash, which it might have actually been, many people answered with detail on issues such as AIDS and Affirmative Action, humanitarianism and internationalism, fighting the Pentagon to stop a genocide, and so forth, as proof of his liberalism, and how his successfully managing and reforming huge military bases actually amounts to governing experience even if it was not in the public sector.

I found the discussion to be worthwhile, because people can read it and maybe learn something, instead of running around saying "Clark is no liberal and never governed," which is a bash, because it is untrue.

:dem: