A prominent and regular diarist currently sits atop the Recommended list. She wants to know what's allowed as we approach the denouement of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
She won't respond to answers in her own diary, so this diary is intended as a primer on what is, and what is not, allowed. And by the way, I'm following her lead in using the word allowed: I don't get to make any rules; I'm speaking only as one Obama supporter with almost six years of experience at MyDD about what I believe diarists and posters should and should not do.
Update [2008-5-20 13:38:41 by deminva]: I've added MATTW's rules from his comment below. I changed their numbering to have a single list; his rules start after my final rule.[Update 2] Thanks to everyone who has suggested other rules. Just to be clear, I envision these rules as no more than guidelines for what diarists and posters should and should not do if they wish to be valued and respected members of this community. If you have any constructive feedback for me, please provide it.
Some posters have taken exception to my habit of offering examples that are uniformly critical of Clinton and/or her supporters. I did so on purpose, in part because I wanted to tacitly invite Clinton supporters to "follow" my "rules" by offering substantive counterarguments to any of my examples. If anyone cares to offer examples that illustrate shortcomings of Obama supporters, by all means do so. Some posters have generally rebutted me by saying that all facts are interpretations. Without getting too deep, I disagree. For example, Obama won the Virginia primary and in it the white vote. Those are facts, and unless you want to take exception to how we define winning a primary or how voters define their race, they aren't subject to interpretation. Similarly, Clinton said in October that the MI primary wouldn't count. That's a fact. You can go to Youtube and listen to her say it. Now, I believe that the most reasonable interpretation for why she made the statement is that she wanted to justify to the voters of NH why she was keeping her name on the MI ballot, her point being that NH voters had no reason to think that she was showing their first-in-the-nation primary any disrespect by staying on the MI ballot. But whatever her rationale for saying it, it's a settled fact: Clinton stated that the MI primary wouldn't count.
1. You are allowed to offer substantive criticism of candidates. By substantive, I mean that your criticism should be thoughtful and reflective of an understanding of the issue(s). If your criticism is shared only by fellow online supporters and Fox News, it may not be substantive. For example, Clinton supporters like to suggest that Tony Rezko is a huge liability for Obama, when in fact polls show that Rezko is a non-issue for most voters. They also like to damn Obama with Rezko, suggesting that their connection is some sort of proof of Obama's dishonesty or poor ethics, whereas both Chicago papers, after conducting extensive interviews with Obama about Rezko, concluded that Obama did nothing improper and praised him for answering all their questions so forthrightly.
2. You are not allowed to offer up a campaign's talking points as facts and expect them to be accepted whole cloth. For example, Senator Clinton offered the talking point this weekend that Obama wasn't campaigning in Kentucky, which demonstrated that he doesn't care about the state or its voters. But she isn't campaigning in Oregon, so does she not care about Oregonians? Two weeks ago, she wasn't campaigning in NC. In February, she didn't campaign in a lot of the red caucus states. Perhaps these decisions are not about "caring about the voters" and instead reflect tactical campaign decisions about where a candidate's time can best be spent.
3. You are not allowed make baldly contradictory statements. Lots of choice examples here. My favorite is In the interest of fairness, the MI and FL primaries must count.
4. You are not allowed to use "black box" metrics as the basis for grand claims. The best is example is Clinton is winning the popular vote and therefore deserves to be the nominee. Anything else will be a betrayal of democracy.
5. Corollary to #4: You are not allowed to use simplistic metrics that undercut your central premise. Again, this popular vote canard: For Clinton to "win" the popular vote, one must (a) count MI and FL, which don't currently count; (b) count MI, where Obama wasn't on the ballot; (c) not count multiple caucus states where Clinton lost badly; (d) be willing to diminish the enfranchisement of every caucusgoer in every caucus state, since their results carry far less weight in a popular vote tally than in a count of pledged delegates; (e) count the results of the TX primary but not of the TX caucus; (f) disregard the fact that, if this had been a race for the most votes, both candidates would have campaigned very differently; and (g) disregard the related fact that, if this had been a race for the most votes, every state with sense would have held primaries instead of caucuses to maximize their effect.
6. You are not allowed to make high-minded calls for comity in the thread of your diary, then start casting aspersions. For example, the diarist in question made such a call in an Indiana Primary Results diary, only to follow it up by declaring that, if Obama somehow won the state, it would be because the mayor of Gary committed vote fraud.
7. You are not allowed to call substantive criticism "vitriolic" and "hate-filled." I know this rule can be hard to follow when there in fact is vitriol and hate in the air. But the fact remains that the diarist in question likes to call any substantive criticism of Clinton "vitriolic." Here's an example: When I write that Clinton is a hypocrite and a liar about Michigan's primary, I'm offering neither vitriol nor hate. I'm offering facts. In October, she stated that "everyone knew" the MI primary wasn't going to count; it was her sole justification for keeping her name on the ballot. She even said it in response to a caller her questioned whether keeping her name on the ballot wasn't just another example of politicians saying one thing while doing another.
8. You are not allowed to use derogatory terms like Obamabot and then decry how mean-spirited other posters are. Use derogatory terms if you like; keep your taglines that say clever things like I'm a Methodist; I don't need another messiah. Just realize that, in doing so, you're forfeiting your right to complain about others' rough language and your credibility as a reasonable contributor to the conversation.
And my last rule: You are not allowed to write one diary after another full of claims, criticisms, and assertions and then not respond honestly and substantively to thoughtful rebuttals. The diarist in question has broken this rule so many times that she has squandered her credibility with much of the MyDD community. It's a bizarre state of affairs.
This list is certainly not intended to be comprehensive, so please offer you own rules.
[Here are MATTW's rules]
Rule #10: We don't praise John McCain. Regardless of the point you want to make, you don't build him up by comparison. The only time I've brought up a favorable comparison to McCain is specifically in the context of Clinton making her "I've crossed that line, McCain has crossed that line" speech, where I pointed out that if she wanted to win the nomination that way, McCain can draw his own line that she can't cross. So in short, unless the Dem candidate is praising McCain, in which case, fair's fair.
Rule #11: Don't post stupid electability arguments. I'm not saying don't say one is more electable than the other. But if you're going to attempt to argue that one is as good as dead in the fall, I say: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Everything we can see shows that both our candidates are extremely electable, and since McCain has had a largely free ride for months, I think it's safe to say the worst is yet to come for him. If you're going to argue the supers must "save" the party, please, be rational, and realize that your argument is, on the face, absurd. You must make a world class argument, or you're just blowing hot air.
Rule #12: If you have raised a talking point dozens of times in the past, please indicate that you actually read the other side. For example, it is entirely inappropriate to talk about Obama's "present" votes as if they were somehow anti-choice; or, if you want to ignore the mountain of evidence to the contrary, it at least behooves you to include a disclaimer. You won't see me talking about how Hillary's campaign contacted the Canadian PM regarding NAFTA, since evidence to that effect was basically debunked. Likewise, I'd appreciate it if diaries from regulars did not read like propaganda pieces that completely ignore the other side.
Rule #13: If you get the urge to cheerlead for a Democratic candidate, please realize that the two Democrats both largely stand for the same thing. When someone exhorts people to vote for Hillary because, "We need to end the war" or "We need to fix health care in this country", I always double-take. If we're contrasting against McCain, wonderful. We need those. Our candidates are clearly the right choice. But most such claims seem to be attached to fundraising appeals and warnings up upcoming Democratic primaries. They did vote the same 98% of the time. The hyperbolic, "X is the only person who can possibly Y" arguments treat the reader as stupid, frankly.
Rule #14: Put yourself in the other side's shoes. This is the Golden Rule. If your post is written as if your candidate's superiority is a foregone conclusion, then don't be surprised when people want to pop that balloon - be it counterarguments, sarcasm, or totally non sequitur "but he can't even win WV?" type comebacks; if you can't acknowledge, implicitly or explicitly, that half the party (roughly) disagrees with you, then you should probably rephrase or rethink.
Not so much in the "rules" vein, but similar to point #14, I'd hope that both sides consider:
(1) Clinton supporters: imagine the positions reversed. You have to seriously picture Hillary as a near-lock, with Obama praying for a superdelegate overturn, the credentials committee seating Illinois (even though Clinton wasn't on the ballot) and South Carolina in full, and making some specious claim on the popular vote total. Meanwhile, supers are flocking to her, the press has declared her the winner, and, oh yeah, she has a ton of money and Obama is $20M in the hole. I'm not saying don't fight for your candidate, but try to respect the position the "other side" is in.
(2) Obama supporters: As long as Clinton has not conceded, don't expect the Clinton supporters to concede. If she goes to the convention, they go to the convention. If positions were reversed and you were really passionate about Obama's candidacy, and were convinced he was better in the fall and more electable besides, would you quit before he did? Show some respect for the passionate Clinton supporters.
Oh, yes:
Rule #15: PICK A TOPIC. Please. Pleeeease. Don't make one diary into a hodgepodge run-down of every pro-Your-Candidate anti-Their-Candidate news you can find. If you're making a diary about your candidate's awesome campaign rally, be about that, and save the jab at the other candidate for another time. If you're slamming the other candidate for a vote or a policy position, focus on that, instead of putting two paragraphs toward that, and then dedicating three more to, "It's just like X to do this, like they did A, and then B, and then they did C, which proves they're unelectable!" Argh! (This last thing is most frequently seen by people who are simultaneously trodding all over "Rule #11")
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