Yet, I can think of no better way to put people off a candidate than to have nutty folks campaigning for them. Maybe you have something, there.
It's been pretty well established that we have DU types come here and establish their bona fides as conservatives and then when a campaign heats up, start to trash a candidate.
There have even been rumors of candidates paying posters to come here. Some freepers have multiple screen names and talk with themselves under their other screen name(s), if you know what I mean. That way they set up an echo chamber. Sometimes they forget to change computers/screen names and we've found them posting to themselves. Oops. LOL.
I'm pretty suspicious of freepers who take extreme positions that I've never in real life heard people make.
I know you've left for now but thought I'd mention something about those sleeper trolls.
On another thread I just ran into a freeper who made an ugly statement about the president. The freeper signed up in 2003 so I checked his in forums. He's made exactly 3 posts since 2003.
He's banned now. But he was probably going to start posting a lot now that the campaign season will heat up after Labor Day.