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“Idiot.” “Racist.” “Baby killer.” “Misogynist.” “Homophobic.” “Hypocrite.”  “F**king moron.” “Kill yourself.” “You should be shot.

These words and phrases can be seen on the blogging site Tumblr, a website that is intended to be a positive medium for free and open debate. Instead, during this election season, some users have turned the site into a warzone of harassing comments.

Tumblr is “a place for creative folks of all stripes to connect around their interests” says Liba Rubenstein, director of outreach for causes and politics for the website. In that spirit, Tumblr allows users to send and receive messages with the option to allow for anonymous messages. It is generally through the “Ask Box” that Tumblr users receive insults and threats, sometimes from anonymous users.

“There’s no question that a perception of privacy and anonymity on the Web allows some people to express things that they couldn’t or wouldn’t express in person,” says Rubenstein. “And certainly some people will be jerks if there are no social sanctions attached to it.”

Two hundred anonymous users were surveyed about their experiences in terms of the election and of politics on the blogging website. Fifty-eight of those participants admitted that they received hate messages after they expressed support for a presidential candidate and voiced their political views – majority of those users were Republican bloggers.

“Anecdotally, the largest and most active political communities on Tumblr are among folks with liberal/progressive and libertarian views, with a growing set of conservative voices becoming more active in this election cycle,” says Rubenstein.

One Republican user was told to end his life.

“I was told, basically, that I was stupid and that I just believed what religion shoved down my throat,” he said. “I was also told that I hate gays and women and that I’m ignorant and need to educate myself. Oh, and once I was told that I should be shot.”

Democrats were not immune to the harassment though, as one Democrat said that she had been called a “transf*ck freak chick with a dick” after she had a political debate with another blogger.

Seven users who took the survey admitted that they had sent harassing messages to other users, including the same user who had been called a “transf*ck freak chick with a dick.” She once told a user that “voting republican makes you a misogynistic racist bigot.” The recipient of her message deleted her blog as a result.

These harassing messages go against Tumblr’s Community Guidelines, Rubenstein said, which state that though the website promotes freedom of speech, they “draw lines around a few narrowly-defined but deeply important categories of content and behavior that jeopardize our users, threaten our infrastructure, or damage our community.”

One such category is “malicious bigotry” which is defined as hateful speech based on users gender, age, race, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, or veteran status.

Tumblr is not the only website that contains these types of harassing messages. Eighty-eight percent of teens have seen violent behavior on social network sites at least once, according to a study done by Pew Research Center in 2011. Their study analyzed various other websites, including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The positive flipside is that 84 percent of those teens saw other people trying to stop the cruelty.

Though Tumblr says that they do not tolerate messages like these, it is hardly possible to monitor all of the 77 million blogs on their website. Tumblr has been doing what it can to promote positive political discussion amidst the hate that is speckled throughout it.

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In a night where no surprises were expected, none were had. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has won all five states up for grabs in today’s primary elections.

On the ballot today were Romney, former Senator Rick Santorum (who dropped out too late to have his name wiped from the slate), former Congressman Newt Gingrich and Congressman Ron Paul.

For a time in this frantic, tumultuous, protracted primary season, it was thought that these Northeast states might have a meaningful say in the outcome of the race to the Republican presidential nomination. But when Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10th, Romney officially took on the mantle of President Barack Obama’s top challenger.

Now that the polls are closed and over 90 percent of the votes have been tallied, the results reflect an unequivocal win for Romney. According to the Associated Press, he received over 55 percent of the vote in each state, climbing up to nearly 68 percent in Connecticut.

Santorum’s numbers did not break 10 percent in any state except his home state of Pennsylvania, where he climbed to over 18 percent. Gingrich and Paul, however, raked in consistently modest but notable results — Gingrich topping 27 percent in Delaware and Paul approaching 25 percent in Rhode Island.

Romney’s victory speech reflected his new status as presumptive nominee, as he attacked Obama.

“Tonight is the start of a new campaign to unite every American who knows in their heart that we can do better!” he said from a celebration in New Hampshire. “The last few years have been the best that Barack Obama can do, but it’s not the best America can do!”

But the inevitability of Romney’s win also resulted in an extremely low turn-out. In New York City, even at a heavily Republican polling site, traffic was nearly non-existent. Public School 52 in Staten Island houses six election districts that are home to 1433 registered Republicans. But by 2:00 p.m., only a handful of voters had cast their ballot. In one election district with approximately 250 eligible voters, only two had checked the box for their candidate of choice.

Polling site coordinator Rosemarie Catrama has been working election days at P.S. 52 for five years, but this was one of the quietest she’s seen.

“I think most of the people know who the Republican primary candidate is going to be, so there’s not much to choose from this time,” she said.

Despite the certainty of today’s election results, the nomination will not be official until the Republican convention in late August, and Romney does not yet have the 1144 delegates he needs to lock that in. But tonight’s election results bring him much closer to the magic number.

The 2011-2012 Republican nominating contest began more than a year ago, well in advance of the first caucus in Iowa on January 3.

Until now, Romney was never able to completely break away from the pack. His front-runner status was always in question as Santorum surged and Gingrich held on.

Today’s sweep of wins finally gives Romney an official trouncing of his rivals. But it also puts to an effective end the roller coaster ride of a primary season has gone from something like Space Mountain to something more like the tea cup ride at Disney World.

Over a year ago, Donald Trump took the presidential primary stage. He grabbed attention by professing the “birther” argument, suggesting that Obama was not born in the United States even though the claim had been repeatedly debunked.

Herman Cain’s candidacy spiked and then plummeted this fall amid major gaffes and multiple allegations of workplace sexual harassment.

In August, 2011, Congresswoman and Tea Party firebrand Michelle Bachmann won what’s known as the Ames straw poll in Iowa, which some pundits said was a sign her candidacy stood a chance of victory in that state’s official primary contest. But her numbers did not sustain her, bringing her only a paltry sixth-place finish.

For a time it seemed that Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, might walk off with the nomination. His candidacy took off as conservative Republicans rallied around him. But after a memory meltdown during a live televised debate in which he could not recall one of the three federal agencies he would seek to shutter, his campaign floundered and never recovered.

Not long after he announced his candidacy for president, Newt Gingrich sailed off on a cruise with his wife. Soon, the political punditry declared his campaign dead as his organization seemed scrambled and his coffers seemed to run dry. But the former Speaker of the House made a surprise comeback in late 2011, surging in the polls and giving Romney yet another run for his money.

Gingrich’s numbers had cooled in the weeks before the Iowa caucus — the nation’s first primary contest. Few predicted Santorum’s win there, and it was indeed so close that the 34 vote margin wasn’t declared until more than two weeks later.

Since the primary elections started to roll across the country, most of the votes have been shared among Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, with nominal but consistent numbers going to Paul. Though Romney pulled out several victories, it was never enough to shake off his competitors and cinch the nomination.

Finally, with tonight’s cluster of unquestionable wins, the Romney campaign can officially call his nomination inevitable — something they had been hoping, and trying to do throughout the past year.

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Ken Clark voted for Mitt Romney today. Photo by Jamie Larson

Ken Clark is a proud man. At age 72, he has made a living off his land, perched on a crest of the Catskill Mountains, in rural, upstate, Gilboa N.Y., for over 35 years. He said he’s never asked anyone for a hand out.

Clark’s neighbors, in surrounding Schoharie, Delaware and Greene counties, are proud too. They are also, as was evident during today’s New York State Republican Primary, resolute in their party loyalty. While turnout for the all-but-over primary was low, Republican residents said come November, they’ll all be at the ballots, to make sure anyone but President Barack Obama is in the White House next year.

“It’s a very Republican area, generation after generation,” said Gilboa Town Council member Dorothy Pickett, standing in the town hall parking lot before going in to vote.

The lifelong Republican said none of her party’s candidates stood out to her this year, which is a shame, because the last thing she wants is another four years of Obama.

“I just don’t care for the man,” Pickett said, “I thought he would be good in the beginning, but that all changed. He just wants to dictate to us.”

Clark put that sentiment more strongly.

“(Obama) is a very smart man,” Clark said, “He knows exactly what he’s doing and that scares me. I equate him to some of the things I saw in Europe, with Hitler and Mussolini.”

On his steep plot, overlooking the Gilboa reservoir, which supplies one-twelfth of New York City’s water supply, Clark has, at one time or another, run a grocery, a hunting supply store, a hog farm and any number of other ventures. Currently, he runs an often-empty bar and restaurant off of Route 990V. It’s called Clark’s and he built it with his own hands.

Clark is worried, bracing for the disaster that he believes may unfold if Republican front-runner Mitt Romney doesn’t defeat Obama. He’s not sure exactly what horrors a second Obama term could bring, but he said it wont be good. He fears the president will breed a deep financial depression, spread communism, or maybe even start a race war, which Clark believes has already begun, as minorities take over job markets white kids now feel too entitled to work in.

Today, Clark said he would be voting for Romney in the primary because the former Massachusetts governor knows how to run a business. While Clark isn’t crazy about Romney, he doesn’t slight the candidate for his personal wealth, as others do.

“He knows how to create jobs. That is issue number one,” Clark said, “Name me one poor person who’s ever created a job? (Obama) is going crazy with these taxes.”

While upstate New York Republicans seem to accept Romney as their inevitable candidate, around the intersection of Greene, Delaware and Schoharie counties, none could be found with any strong feelings for the GOP’s hopeful.

“Oh, Newt Romney?” said four term Gilboa Town Supervisor Tony Vanglad with a laugh, “Yeah, I voted for Romney. I like him because he’s a businessman. He knows how to make a buck.”

“I call him, ‘the pretty boy,’” said Ashland N.Y., Republican poll watcher, Joan Holdridge, referring to Romney.

She declined to say what she calls Obama. Holdridge and her sister-in-law/fellow poll watcher, Lula Anderson, said they liked Romney’s former rival and far right social conservative, Rick Santorum better. Anderson, in her 80s, said she is put off by Romney’s wealth and actually agreed with CNN Democratic Strategist Hilary Rosen’s much criticized statement that Romney’s wife Ann had, “never worked a day in her life.”

“(Ann Romney) hasn’t worked a day in her life,” said Anderson, “Rich people don’t raise their own children. They don’t clean their own houses or do their own shopping. I’ve worked for those kinds of people. I know.”

Nether of the sister-in-laws are confident Romney will win the presidency. Anderson said that in the end, both parties just say whatever it takes to get elected, then do whatever they want when they’re in power.

“They’re all dirty bedfellows,” Anderson said of Republicans and Democrats. “Their philosophies before the election are never their policies after the election.”

“I know one thing,” said Holdridge, “I think our party is going to screw around long enough that Obama’s just going to get re-elected.”

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Ken Johnson, 80, a conservative Republican from Lycoming County, Pa., plans to vote for Mitt Romney for president. Photo by Louie Lazar.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa – In the wide, sparsely populated valley below Bald Eagle Mountain, about a block from the Lycoming County Courthouse at 212 Pine Street, David French sat in an office behind a desk piled with booklets of the U.S. Constitution and leaflets reading, “Stop Obamacare in Pennsylvania.” French, a board member of the Williamsport Tea Party who “lives up in the hills” in nearby Cogan House Township and considers himself a “conservative Republican, with an emphasis on conservative,” is far from enthusiastic about Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and presumptive GOP nominee.

“Nobody likes him. Nobody wants him,” French said Monday morning inside Tea Party headquarters, sharing what he considers the accepted view among fellow conservative activists towards Romney. “He’s a New England establishment Republican. He comes from a part of the party that should’ve been dumped 30 years ago.”

But French, a serious-looking man of 69 with his thinning hair buzzed into a crew cut, said that he will nonetheless back Romney in November, if reluctantly.

“We’ll support whoever the [Republican] party comes up with,” he said.

French is one of several conservatives in this Pennsylvania county who, in interviews conducted here on Monday and Tuesday, expressed deep skepticism of Romney and his right-wing credentials. Yet for a majority of these likely voters, the prospect of a second term for Obama is so frightening that they remain committed to punching the Republican ticket in November.

A fast growing city in the heart of central Pennsylvania, Williamsport is the self-hailed “Epicenter of the Natural Gas Industry,” and home to the Little League World Series. With about 27,000 residents, it has the largest population of any city in the greater Susquehanna Valley and in surrounding Lycoming County, the largest county in all of Pennsylvania. This rural, poor county, with an average income of about $27,000, is also one of the state’s most conservative: John McCain defeated President Obama by 24 points here in 2008. Four years earlier, George W Bush trounced Senator John Kerry by nearly 37. Once known as the “City of Churches,” spires dot the horizon, and every quarter hour church bells echo throughout the valley.

Under a steady late morning rain in downtown Williamsport on Monday, conservative Republican Marcia Johnson, a senior citizen who is both a pilot and a standout bridge player, said that she will happily support Romney in the general election. But she did have early doubts.

“At first I wasn’t for him because I think Massachusetts is kind of liberal,” said Johnson, who initially supported Herman Cain because she thought he could attract black voters. So why has she decided to back Romney in November?

“Well, I’m sure as hell not voting for Obama,” she said, her spirit peppy and her hair in a gray bonnet. “I think Obama is ruining the country. He’s a socialist. He’s a Marxist.”

Her husband, Williamsport native Ken Johnson, a talkative, cheery 80-year-old wearing a jacket with an airplane logo, had little to say about Romney, but agreed that removing Obama from office was a priority.

“Anybody but Obama,” he said, wearing a hat with the letters UFO, referring to United Flying Octogenarians, a club of active airline pilots over age 80. “His government is out to destroy the country.”

“He’s never really shown his birth certificate,” Ken continued. He also said he doesn’t think Obama is in the country legally. His wife nodded.

“I can’t understand why he hasn’t been impeached already,” said Marcia. She added that she believes Obama is a Muslim.

But not all conservatives here are as open to voting for Romney. Or as cordial.

About a mile away, a huge, middle-aged man with a white, grizzly beard emerged from his house on Washington Boulevard, next to Williamsport Cemetery. A visitor had inquired about the man’s garage, and about the sign on its door that read, “East End Gun Specialty Sporting Goods and Live Bait.” Asked whether he plans on voting in November, the man, who declined to disclose his name, uttered a racial epithet in reference to President Obama, then turned angry.

“If it’s between that jackass we have in office, and that moron from New England, I’d rather not bother,” he barked, with numerous expletives peppered throughout the sentence. He said he has supported Republicans in the past, but that he prefers not to discuss politics. Asked if he had voted in the 2008 Election, the man turned silent.

“There’s the door,” he ordered, pointing in the direction of the cemetery.

At 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, at the same time polls throughout Pennsylvania opened under still-overcast skies, Lycoming County Commissioner Tony Mussare, a Republican who “leans Tea Party,” said over oatmeal and coffee that it is “kind of a joke that [Romney] is the guy the Republicans are going to nominate.”

“My God, Mitt Romney – are you kidding me?” cried Mussare, a short, passionate man with a round face who makes solid eye contact. “Go look at his flip flop videos. Almost every notable policy he’s changed his mind. Is that a conservative? I don’t think so.”

He cited Romney’s past positions on gun control, abortion, and health care as just a few reasons why he thinks many in the Tea Party will not vote for the former Massachusetts governor.

“Now will I vote for him? I certainly will if he’s our candidate,” he said.

Mussare, a small business owner, believes that Romney will “excel in understanding the needs of businesspeople,” and that the economy is the country’s top concern. Plus, there’s another, more significant issue.

“Not everything that Barack Obama does is evil,” he said, “But he’s further to the left than a socialist. Socialism wouldn’t be enough for this guy, and I don’t mean this jokingly.”

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