Hi,
I just wanted to correct a few points here about me. 
This statement here:
[quote="Beathan":21gar890]So far, on any model I am familiar with, no party or person has engaged in negative campaigning against CARE (except me and Dianne ... [/quote:21gar890]
I think is a bit off, in that it implies that I am engaged in an "Anti-CARE" campaign or [i:21gar890]negative campaigning.[/i:21gar890] Technically, to be engaged in negative campaigning I would have to belong to a party (I do not), and then base my party's campaign primarily on disparaging remarks about the other parties.
My personal opinion is that there is no party in this election that can really be described as running a "negative campaign" in the way that the term is typically applied, but I [i:21gar890]completely[/i:21gar890] disagree with the idea that I am doing such. I made one single post in regards the platform of CARE only. I am, as I said, not affiliated with any party and perhaps went too far only in the fact that I maintained that I would not be voting for CARE. That was my personal decision that I perhaps should have kept to myself, but by itself is merely a statement of preference, nothing more.
My purpose in making that post was not simply to disparage CARE. A part of what I tried to do was show that CARE actually *did* have policies in it's platform, although I found them confusing and not well thought out. I was studying the CARE platform and Manifesto and trying to make sense out of it. In doing so, I identified what I thought were the three substantive policies or promises of the CARE campaign and that was the impetus for the post. The other things I said, about the business like approach, and so forth, were just my opinion nothing more, but based on my reading of the literature, seeing Michel in action, and talking with other citizens of the CDS.
[quote="michelmanen":21gar890]... As to Dianne's post -when she wrote these lines she had never met me in-world or otherwise beyond a couple of meetings we both attended and where we exchanged brief hellos. ... I contacted Dianne, met her in private for almost one hour, inquired as to her reasons for making this post purporting to know me personally and CARE in general so well before even having had the change to actually talk to me even once ... I'd like to think that by the end of our chat, I was able to clear any misconceptions and misunderstandings and establish more cordial relations between us than might be assumed from just reading her post.[/quote:21gar890]
While it is true that I did not (and still do not) really know Michel that well, that has never stopped me commenting on people before. 
Michel and I did have a chat and he conveyed to me his feelings on being typecast as a "business type" when in fact he claims more of a social science background. (If I understand that correctly, Michel please correct me if I am mistaken). I apologised several times for hurting his feelings (if I did), but I don't see it as a really big deal. My analysis of CARE's literary style as being too "business oriented" for my tastes was based only on the language that CARE uses and not meant as a personal attack of any kind. I made a judgment (perhaps wrong perhaps right), based on the information I had at the time, period.
Now that I know that Michel is coming from a different kind of background I can see the so-called "business language" having perhaps a different source, but I am not going to compound my errors here by making prognostications on the new information I got from the chat I had with Michel. It is up to each of us to make up our own minds and vote accordingly, and the election is already on in any case.
I don't mean any harm to Michel or have any enmity towards CARE. They haven't been elected or really done anything yet that anyone *could* get upset about. So relations always were "cordial" in that sense. I haven't however, changed my opinions about who I am going to vote for, or my feeling that the CARE platform is lacking (IMO of course) in detail, substance, and clarity.
