What ground rules should we ask the remaining candidates to agree to 'til Denver?

[Ken Burch]

We have to try to get some rules set here, folks, or these people will shred each other beyond recognition and leave the winner as raw meat for the Big Elephant.

I know we don't actually have the ability to enforce any real ground rules, but if we publicized the idea, it could get some legs.

Seems to me this would include:

1) No more references to race or gender;

2) No dismissal of any particular generation, young or old;

3) No mention of any alleged associations with "shady" characters unless those allegations have ALREADY been proven correct.

Add your own, we'll need a lot more.

[Coexist]

1. to please support the DNC and the difficult decisions they had to make.

[Ken Burch]

2. That's a good one.

n/t.

[robbedvoter]

5. You mean give up the reason for my handle? For being on DU? A bit much.

[saracat]

3. Are you seriously trying to regulate "free speech".?You want to"'control" what we say?

How dare you? I may agree with some of your suggesstions but I will NEVER agree to regukate what is said.It is up to the candidate supporters to regulate themselves or to be presuasive in deflecting arguments they feel are false.Anything else is censorship.

[Ken Burch]

8. I'm not trying to regulate "free speech" I am trying to have our candidates wipe each other out

There is a difference.

I actually want MORE free speech than some of them want, in terms of the issues. I want free votes on the platform at the convention, and an end to the "no protest/peace sign" rule that was so pointless and ugly at the last one.

It's the destruction and smears I'm talking about, not real discussion of the real issues.

[saracat]

9. Well, what the candidates have to say is regulated only by what they determine they want to say.

If a candidate chooses to look like an ass, the candidate has the right to do that and we have no tight to stop him/her.And as for so called smears and non smears that is in the eye of the beholder. What I think is a smear isn't necessarily what others think is one and so it goes.

[TooBigaTent]

4. How about asking them to run as Democrats? I know, too crazy of an idea.

[GalleryGod]

6. They gave me a war. I reported for duty

As for TODAY?

There was another time, when another young candidate was running for President and challenging America to cross a New Frontier. He faced public criticism from the preceding Democratic President, who was widely respected in the party. Harry Truman said we needed “someone with greater experience”—and added: “May I urge you to be patient.” And John Kennedy replied: “The world is changing. The old ways will not do…It is time for a new generation of leadership.”

So it is with Barack Obama. He has lit a spark of hope amid the fierce urgency of now.

I believe that a wave of change is moving across America. If we do not turn aside, if we dare to set our course for the shores of hope, we together will go beyond the divisions of the past and find our place to build the America of the future.

My friends, I ask you to join in this historic journey -- to have the courage to choose change.

It is time again for a new generation of leadership.

It is time now for Barack Obama.

[Medusa]

7. Like the Clintons play by the rules?

You gotta be kidding me.

[Tulkas]

10. Hillary breaks pledges, why bother?

[ErnestoG]

11. Those all sound like common decency rules to me....

that should be a part of anyone's daily script. But as you know, they get tossed out the window in the primary season as we lunge for each others' throats.