I have never received an email like this before

If you put your e-address on the internet, you'd better expect to get some crank emails. It's indicative of nothing broad.

But now on to this wonderful expression came this morning as a result of my defending Tammy Duckworth here as a result of people denigrating her service and sacrifice.

I read all of the recent posts about Duckworth and don't remember anyone denigrating her service and sacrifice. If you can cite and link to what you're referring to it would be greatly appreciated. I've had to learn to not accept such claims at face value.

For better or worse, we, as Democrats, need to support her/him in an effort to take back our government.

Where do you draw the line -- or do you?

The fact is, some Democrats we're better off without.

Ugh, total lack of class. I can guess who that is given the line "from without rather than within the district".

I was a Cegelis supporter and I can assure you that most of us would NEVER stoop to that level.

I don't agree with Tammy on everything but I think that overall she is a good candidate.

Tammy is no Zell Miller. Are you at all familiar with what she stands for?

I agree with you. I'm not sure if we are talking about the same person, but I also received an email telling me that was kind of rude. I was basically told that I shouldn't comment on IL-6 because "I know nothing about the district".

I fully understand what you are saying. This reminds me of the time when Jane Harman came to DKos a few months ago. It was right before her primary against Marcy Winograd. Winograd's supporters insulted her, treated poorly, and acted unprofessionally. They were very immature in how they voiced their disagreements with her. Same thing when other "less than ideal" Democrats have come to Kos and other "progressive blogs"--a group of posters comes out and insults them.

You are right about how bloggers can impact candidates and their races. In the Harman thread a lone the behavior of some of Winograd's supporters turned off people who would have considered her otherwise. How someone's supporters acts, rightly or wrongly, can reflect upon how others see that candidate.

This reminds me of the Pennachio campaign. Many of their supporters were just rude as Cegelis's supporters. They were often snide and self-righteous. Even though I was never supportive of Pennachio their comments turned me off to him even more.

As for the whole IL-6 matter I didn't necessarily think it was right for the DCCC to meddle the way that they did. However, there was a primary; and Cegelis didn't win. Her supporters evidently can't accept the fact that ordinary Democratic voters in the IL-6 chose Duckworth. And if Cegelis had the "support" that her followers claimed it evidently didn't register in the March primary. For the votes speak louder than anything else. Duckworth won the primary; Cegelis didn't. I didn't like how Cegelis was treated; but, in the end, if she did have the "support" that people here claimed she did, she would have won the primary.

The behavior that you mention is one of the reasons that I am skeptical about the "netroots" and their "influence". For rude and shrill comments like that, especially to elected officials like Jane Harman, don't reflect positively on the "netroots". If anytyhing someone like Harman would probably perceive the thread with the insults that she participated in to be "proof" that the "netroots is filled with extremists".

I cringe when I hear the term "netroots". What I think of are the people who throw out those insults, act in a juvenile fashion, and then expected politicans to take them seriously. I know that this isn't the true impression of the "netroots", but those people give the term a very bad name. And if the "netroots" wants to be taken seriously by the much-maligned "establishment", acting in a juvenile and immature fashion isn't going to do it.

You write:

"This is an example of some small part of what's wrong with the Democratic Party, The Democratic Party leadership at the State level and at the District level. We have a candidate. For better or worse, we, as Democrats, need to support her/him in an effort to take back our government. We will need to do the same in 2008."

Of course you make a very good point. Unfortunately there are way too many people here on this and other "progressive" blogs who want to "send messages" than actually win. Look at the hostility toward Melissa Bean here. Her detractors would rather have her lose, perhaps costing the Democrats control of Congress, resulting in the election of someone completely hostile to ALL progressive ideals, because she can't vote like Barbara Boxer. They don't seem to realize that a Barbara Boxer-style Democrat can't win in a district that is overwhelmingly affluent, home to many corporate headquaters, dominated by upper level white collare employees such as CEOs, and that voted for Bush II with 56% of the vote in 2004. That type of district isn't going to elect the type of "Democrat" that many people around here want. Unfortunately some people here refuse to believe that.

It is kind of sad. I call the liberals that you described to be "matryr liberals". For some messed-up reason they would rather lose than win. To them, in their perverse logic, losing is a form of "winning". They take pride in their marginalization and aren't really interested in governance. So they push and embrace lost/futile/vain causes (Chuck Pennachio, for example) and then get angry when either Democratic primary voters reject their choices soundly or when their candidates don't win general elections.

So I agree with you. But unfortunately, among the left, there are some people who want to lose. And this is one thing I will say about the conservative right that I admire: they actually want to win. They don't force impossible litmus tests on blue-state/blue-district Republicans the way many people here push those same strident demands on red-state/red-district Democrats.

The phrase "those who are truly engaged with the local and progressive dynamics of illinois 06" is pretty much verbatim from the playbook of the myDD user illinois062006, who myDD old-timers will probably better remember as metonym, author of perhaps the greatest GBCW diary in all blogosphere history. (If I recall, he did make at least one reference to "Fuckworth," and when called out on, claimed it was a typo.)