Dick Gephardt's campaign is the first to launch a negative campaign website against another Dem candidate. See deanfacts.com for all the ugly business. There's also another site -- waffle powered howard -- which does about the same thing with less accuracy and without attributing its source, but a whois query tells us it's registered to Eric Huebner, who also runs this pro-kerry site so I think that mystery is solved.

Hopefully these are the last, but I fear that won't be the case. This is total bullshit for three reasions:

• Going negative, especially this early, against another Dem is bad for the party -- it's free ammo for Bush
• The quotes are circa 1995 -- if we wanted to dig through everything anyone said over the past 10 years, we'd probably find some things that conflict with his or her positions today
• This tactic is intended to supress participation -- to keep people dispirited and out of the process

The last reason is the one that really gets me. This election is about whether or not we can break the cycle of fear and non-participation that has dominated politics for so long, and become intolerable over the past few years. Gephardt's campaign and at least one member of Kerry's grassroots are giving in to the dark side. Let's keep our eyes on the prize, and let's keep turning people on with participation.