Daily Kos is a community. We get to know each other. We get angry together at the latest injustice spewing forth from the Bush Administration. We share our disappointment with one another when the Democrats we champion do not live up to their promise or their promises. We share our cat pictures, comfort each other when personal tragedy invades our lives, and congratulate each other on the joys we experience in this life.
Whether it is in the many Pootie diaries that infest ...er ah...grace this site, or in the Saturday Garden blogging diaries, or in Friday nights' "Got a Happy Story?" diaries, or in Saturday night's "What's Your Fucking Problem?" diaries, or in Bill in Portland Maine's Koufax Award Winning "Cheers and Jeers" diaries, the community here is alive and kicking.
Yet we are losing people.
SallyCat, PhillyGal, The Holy Handgrenade, among others.
Longtime members of the community.
Because of the ugliness of the Primary Wars being fought amongst the more severe candidate partisans.
Every election season our community receives an large influx of new members who come here to either get information about their preferred candidate or about the election, or to advocate for their preferred candidate's election.
This is not a bad thing. We want that to happen.
And whenever two or more groups of committed candidate partisans advocate for their candidate, there is inevitably going to be some arguments and nasty attacks. They don't call it a Primary War for nothing. In 2004 we learned what a Primary War entailed. And we shall the aftermath. Yet the community picked up the pieces and came together for the most part, and was united going into the general election and beyond.
There have been many diaries imploring the more severe candidate partisans to tone it down, to show respect, and (to put it bluntly) to shut the fuck up.
I am not going to do that.
I am more interested in knowing who among the more committed candidate partisans engaging in battle are going to be here after the Primary War is over to help us clean up the mess they made.
Will you be here for the long haul?
Or are you here just to wreak havoc and then leave when your candidate doesn't win (or even if he or she does win)?