my personal openion, this will hurt Huckabee although (I think) he sincerely tried not to be negative, anway I hope it will hurt both & some of their votes will go to Ron Paul.

Sent by R. Kakel | 7:21 AM ET | 01-01-2008

With the ease of downloading videos onto Youtube, you get to wondering what the inevitable result of any video or conspiracy theory is at this stage of the game.

Let's imagine that future scholars of a hundred years from now were studying Youtube and conspiracy theory web sites to get an idea of what life was like in America during the George Bush administration. It is likely that scholars in the year 2108 would draw the conclusion that America was overwhelmed by a plague of paranoia and delusion.

Of course, if this conspiracy theory paranoia were to continue at the rate it has grown over the past seven years, by the year 2108, everyone would have killed everyone else in a paranoid rage.

That, or I have a theory that the conspiracy theory rage bubble is about to burst in the very near future. Anything that gets over-saturated at such an alarming rate is bound to become its own worst enemy.

What started with 'George Bush stole the election,' and evolved into thousands of '9/11 conspiracy theories,' has further evolved into a mega-plex assembly line of conspiracy theories that cover everything from the microcosm to the whole of the cosmos itself.

One of sound body and mind comes to the conclusion that anyone who spends a significant portion of their time reading and believing the never-ending listing of conspiracy theory videos, that individual's mind has to short-circuit eventually.

It's the age old saw of crying wolf. After a while, nobody with common sense believes in wolves anymore.

And the conspiracy theorist will tell you that there is a fifty foot tall wolf waiting in your back yard.

fred camorra call

Sent by fred camorra call | 11:53 AM ET | 01-01-2008

The paradox of negativity is that those who are trying to raise the Democratic Party against the Evil Empire of the Republican Party are, in fact, doing more harm to the Democrats than the Republicans.

Those who have been railing against the Evil Empire of George Bush have managed to make themselves look like wild eyed anarchists, by having gone way overboard in their accusations of corruption in everything that is not nailed down in Washington.

What began as a popular Micheal Moore movie has grown into a hydra devouring itself with negative campaiging that is backfiring. The far left has gone so far left that moderate Democrats are jumping ship for fear of being equated with extremist radicalism of the guillotine blade dropping variety.

Cries of impeachment and imprisonment for everybody Republican fails the test of logic since congressional Democrats have been as solidly behind the war in Iraq as congressional Republican. How can anyone call for impeachment because of bills they voted in favor of themselves?

The Democratic candidates are surely aware of this predicament that their constituency has grown weary of looking like a lynch mob rather than voters. The mob mentality is scaring away Democrats into either the Indendent fold, or even the Republican fold.

The end result of unbridled revolutionary screeds has come to hurt those who were intended to be aided.

This is most likely why Huckabee foresaw the dangerous backlash endemic to negative campaigning. He'd end up looking like a wild eyed Democrat.

fred camorra call

Sent by fred camorra call | 5:19 PM ET | 01-01-2008

why the press conference and big announcement that he's too big a man to go negative? someone who truly felt bad about making a negative ad would be too ashamed too announce such short comings to the world.

Sent by Ben Atkinson | 7:10 PM ET | 01-01-2008

Does Huckabee really think the (stealth) nice guy tactics are going to work in the general election (esp. in battleground states)?

Sent by S. Nesbitt | 7:40 PM ET | 01-01-2008

Fred Camorra did a great job of articulating the average American's take on these elections. We're just sick of them all.

Democrats conveniently forget that they had access to all the same intelligence as the current administration and reached the same conclusion. The scariest thing about Iraq is the fact that our intelligence STUNK so badly.

Republicans are so scared of losing the Christian Right vote that they pander unmercifully.

Personally, I'm waiting for the Green or Libertarian parties to run ads saying, "Vote for us. Could we really be worse?" That would be a hoot.

Sent by S. Dudley | 9:10 AM ET | 01-02-2008