I was sad to see that today brought another pair of ugly diaries on the Ohio Senate race. The amount of (virtual) ink that has been spilled on smearing the hell out of the two candidates is something that I frankly find appalling, and I think it's time we do something about it, before this damn thing spirals out of control and gets particularly nasty.
So, I'm proposing some rules for diaries on the subject.
More on the flip...
1.
Be positive about your candidate. No one has ever gotten in trouble for making a passionate, articulate,
positive case for their preferred candidate. We're a group of political junkies, and we all have strong opinions. And that's fantastic. Passion is something that's sorely missing from much of our political discourse.
But it's roughly 10 million times more effective when it's directed the right way. One of the biggest reasons that people have such strong feelings on this race is that we really do have two fantastic candidates, both with different strengths and weaknesses. So whether you're a fan of the tough talking marine who can appeal to a wider electorate, or the proven fighting progressive, you can't really go wrong. And you can't go wrong writing a diary about either of these two men, as long as you focus on those attributes.
So with every diary, think: "am I helping win people to my horse's side by making a strong case why they should be the nominee?"
2. On a related note avoid unneccessary attacks on the other candidate. Calling Sherrod Brown a flip-flopper, or calling Paul Hackett...whatever people would want to use to impugn his character (there hasn't been as much of this, as far as I can tell), is utterly uncalled for. At the end of the day, both men are Democrats. And even better, they're both "good" democrats, with nary a DLCer in the bunch. There's no reason to smear either one of these men. Keep in mind, one of them is going to end up being the nominee, and he's going to have to run against DeWine, and people are going to have to support him. Creating pointless ill-will isn't going to accomplish anything in the long run, and it might drive people away from your side in the short run.
3. If you are going to make claims about one of the two candidates you better be able to back it up. Saying that smears of candidates have no place in this discussion is not to say that differences shouldn't be drawn between the candidates. If you think one candidate is better on an issue than another candidate, or if you think one candidate has a fundraising, institutional, electoral etc. advantage; those are things that matter in this decision.
But you better be right. If you say Sherrod Brown is a homophobe, or that Paul Hackett won't be able to raise money, you better be able to make a compelling case for your point. If you can't support a claim; don't make it. We're all on the same side.
4. And lastly, every diary about the Ohio Senate race should have at least one mention of Mike DeWine. He is the ultimate target in this whole endeavor. He's the real opponent here. The number of 1200 word diaries that never even bring up the name of the Republican whose seat we are trying to take is simply astounding. This thing is heated, and that's not necessarily bad, but we can't afford to lose track of who the real enemy is in this race.
</preaching>