This election and this political environment could not have lined up any better for us: we swept Republicans out of office in November 2006, McCain and Bush are the two primary backers of this disastrous war that the solid majority of Americans disapprove of, and the Republican brand has arguably never been in worse shape.  Yet despite all of this, we as a Netroots and we as a party are, yet again, about to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

In a Reuters/Zogby poll that just came out today, the evidence cannot be any clearer.  In what once were strong leads for both Hillary and Obama over McCain, the Arizona Senator now trounces both of them in general election matchups. Trounces.  McCain beats Obama by eight points after being down seven just a month ago; McCain beats Hillary by seven points.  But the news gets even worse.

In two separate Public Policy polls that also came out today that did surveys in the two key states of Ohio and Florida, there are deep, deep demographic rifts among Democrats as well.  They find that Obama is polling under 60% among white Democrats in both states and Hillary isn't even pulling in 55% of African Americans.  Let me remind you that Democrats and African Americans are supposed to vote, well, Democrat!

This primary still has at least two to three more months left of it.  McCain is going to continue to fly below the radar (in addition to flying for photo-ops), raise cash, and otherwise stay out of the spotlight hoping that Obama and Hillary continue to duke it out and bloody each other.  So far, they've obliged.  So far we've obliged.  But right here and right now I ask every to please, for the sake of the party and for the sake of this country, stop.

There has been much talk about boycotts here at this site and over at MyDD.  I honestly don't care and never considered taking part - I enjoy both sides and the perspectives they bring to the table.  Who cares if one side is more pro-Hillary or pro-Obama than the other?  I certainly don't.  But back to the point - I propose a boycott of a different kind.  I ask anyone and everyone willing to do so to join me in, for the rest of the primary season, refusing to recommend any hit diary regardless of whether the subject is Obama or Hillary.  As of right now, I count a combined four hit diaries on the recommended lists between the two sites, which is actually a pretty low number compared to most days around here.  It has to stop or we face an even further erosion of demographic and overall polling numbers against McCain.  At this rate, both candidates will be unelectable.

I truly doubt that the two campaigns will follow suit - though they should - but we can at least try to set an example and show them how a real progressive community ought to act.

Update: Those supportive of the boycott to refuse to recommend hit diaries from here on out:

mecarr

DreamsOfABlueNation

JenKinFLA

newaccount

SoCalVet

americanincanada

ragekage

venavena

TomP

Darknesse

BeekerDynasty

Thuja

MassEyesandEars

LandStander

HatchInBrooklyn

Roberta

Southern Mouth

leshrac55

spirowasright