[af_vet_rr]

There’s a certain group of miscreants — I think they are mostly Cain supporters, who just jump on all the Perry threads to post insults.

They don’t say anything substantive but just really childish, ugly insults.

I’ve never done that on a Cain thread and I don’t think most Perry supporters do.

There were plenty of Perry supporters who early on after Perry got in the race, were pushing the idea that a vote for anybody but Perry was a vote for Romney. I'm not saying you did it altura, as far as I know you didn't, but I remember seeing it way too often and I think that is what really energized a lot of people to jump into Perry threads. Pushing the notion that a vote for a certain candidate is the same as a vote for Romney is about as childish and ugly as you can get. I see some Cain supporters doing it, although I'm not sure they if they are doing it ironically to mock the Perry supporters who claimed that Cain = Romney or if they are being serious.

This happens every election year though. This time around, the media is taking a more active roll in trying to give us Mittens, but this time around, the Tea Party movement is in existence and not going to allow them to do that.

What’s with this falling madly in love with a candidate?

Are you referring to people who post a certain number of threads supporting their candidate every single day, and who include a lot of pictures of their candidate?

I don't think they are in "madly in love with a candidate", I think they are getting paid to do post. I don't care how much you like a candidate, no sane person would wake up and post a bunch of threads like that every single day and post all those photos as if Cain or Perry were the head of some weird cult of personality. I get a chuckle out of certain people who do post those threads or who like to post a lot of candid photos of their candidates, because it just reminds me of something like you'd see in North Korea.

[altura]

Oh, come on. Remember the Bush threads. We liked to see pictures of Bush because he was a good guy and a good looking guy.

I like to see pictures of Perry also. And I think the idea that CW or shield are being paid is ... well, if they are getting paid, I demand some of it.

As far as your contention that people were saying or implying that voting for one candidate was a vote for Romney, I never even saw anything like that.

I think that any of our candidates should be able to beat Obama unless the world’s gone mad, but we have a right and an obligation to at least try to figure out who the best one is for the job.

On the love thing, I was mainly referring to Cain supporters who do seem to love Cain to the point of ignoring any of his weaknesses and getting furious if anyone else mentions them.

[Allegra]

I don't think they are in "madly in love with a candidate", I think they are getting paid to do post.

I don't think that at all.

I've worked as a volunteer on various campaigns in the past and wasn't paid a dime, nor did I expect it.

I see this as people enthusiastically supporting their candidates, much in the same manner that I worked on these campaigns.

There were people putting up several Sarah Palin threads a day when speculation was high that she was running and I never once suspected that these people were being paid, either.

The issue here is certain people who appear on any Perry thread and many other non-Perry threads and start obsessively trashing him. And they aren't doing it in a rational and constructive manner; it's a tired old run of lame jokes that they literally spam threads with.

I personally have never gone on a Cain or Gingrich (or Palin or anyone but Romney or Paul) thread and started slamming the candidate. One reason is that the only candidates I really despise are Romney and Paul and the other is that it's just counterproductive and childish behavior.

It really does put FR in a bad light and I hate to see that.

I'm going to start watching Cain threads more closely and see if there are Perry supporters swarming them with childish insults, but honestly, I have not seen a lot of that up to now.

One person posting here went on the thread about Jose Pimentel yesterday and immediately insulted and blamed Perry - in the first few posts on the thread.

A lot of these people have been observed trying to bully and intimidate those who disagree with them.

I see one on here talking about "our side."

I thought we were all on the same "side" here. Aren't we supposed to be about keeping Romney off the ticket and defeating Obama? The level of vicousness and obsession with some of these people really makes me wonder if some of them have some sort of unsavory agenda.

Sure, it's natural for us to have one candidate we favor over the others, but the vicious acrimony towards the rest of the field is completely unnecessary.

People are getting more and more disgusted with the childish and rude behavior of some of these people. It only takes a handful to make the whole site look bad.