And That's The Bottom Line -- Kos Stone Cold Said So!

Hiram has more, but here are the facts:

Naperville Township Democrats are proud to announce Kos (Markos Moulitsas) from DailyKos.com will be attending our annual holiday party.

Please join us!
January 22, 2006, 2pm - 5pm
Key Wester, Naperville (map here)
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Today, by coincidence, Kos looks at the 6th Dist race via his Fighting Dems profile of DCCC candidate Tammy Duckworth.

Duckworth is probably the most controversial of the Fighting Dems, and it's a shame because she has one of the most compelling stories of this cycle.

In 2004, this district was a lost cause, a lean-Republican district with an incumbent, Henry Hyde, that had served for about 7,000 years. Christine Cegelis took up the hopeless cause with no party backing and no local party infrastructure of note. Yet with little money, Cegelis scored 44% percent of the vote and helped kickstart local progressive activism.

With Hyde retiring after this current term, the DCCC's Rahm Emmanuel took a look at Cegelis' 2004 fundraising and decided to cast about for a "better" candidate. And he found Duckworth.

In a lot of ways, this story isn't fair to Duckworth. She is a woman of incredible courage and accomplishment. *** By all accounts, she is a great person and would make a great congresswoman to represent the district.

But, to put it bluntly, the way Emmanuel got her into the race was simply bullshit.

People from me to Howard Dean have preached the power of people taking charge of their political futures and organizing locally. Yet here in this district, Rahm decided what was best for the locals. And the ham-handed way he did this ensured a great deal of unecessary local bitterness toward both the Democratic Party and to Tammy Duckworth. ***

Both candidates are stellar. Both can win the seat.

"Simply bullshit."

No wonder this kid gets 700K visitors a day -- he has quite a way with words.