All MHO.

1. Neither candidate is as perfect nor as horrible as supporters/detractors have convinced themselves. What they are: Politicians! That means highlighting the absolute worst side of their opponent, and the idealized side of themselves.

2. When this is over, lots of Democrats may need to make a real effort to see the glass of our nominee as half full, if you will. It doesn't hurt to start now. Look on the positive side of him/her -- and yes, both really DO have positives. One way: Think of the Democrats you admire who've endorsed your candidate's opponent. None of them turned "shill" overnight.

3. About the fear of attacks in the primary season: the candidates are not fragile. BOTH campaigns have hurled insults, sometimes quite personal. There's nothing Democrats throw at Democrats that "gives" the GOP something they wouldn't already have -- and the GOP and its 527 PACs will do much worse. These are all love taps by their standards.

4. Neither candidate has experience in being president; thus neither has direct experience making emergency foreign policy decisions. But both can be competent presidents. I dare say: The job isn't THAAAT difficult. We've seen it royally screwed up as never before, for the past 7 years, and maybe that has us thinking it's fraught with danger to have someone who doesn't know what they're doing. It takes someone reasonably intelligent, ethical, and good-hearted, with good advisors. (Unfortunately that's what we haven't had with BushCo.) So either would be fine as presidents; it's the contest with McCain we need to focus on.

5. On policy proposals and positions, our two candidates are nearly identical.

6. Posting attacks on DU is probably not changing anybody's mind about anything, but might just harden feelings in both directions. Hopefully that's not the intention or purpose.

7. If you're finding supporters of a candidate are making you dislike the candidate him/herself, please -- take a break from DU!! (And focus, as I mentioned in #2 above, on the admirable supporters of that candidate.)

8. Barack Obama has brown skin, and Hillary Clinton has wrinkles. Voters are aware of these facts. If we're afraid of images changing voters' minds, we've got work to do.

9. Not voting Democratic in the general election is equivalent to enabling McCain's platform. Read it here so you'll know what you're doing: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues

10. Just as our candidates aren't fragile, neither are we. The Democratic party will be fine; DU will be fine; the United States of America will be fine -- IF, that is, we don't relinquish the fight to the GOP.