Ten years ago today, stumbling across the nascent blogosphere, looking for information about the upcoming elections, I found Daily Kos. I was 25, just a few years out of college, working at a job I didn't particularly care for and in the midst of applying to law school. I had always cared about politics, but I'd begun to realize that when it came down to the real nitty-gritty—to elections, that very fundament of our democracy—I didn't know very much at all. So I set about learning.
Ten years later, I make a living as an elections analyst, here at Daily Kos. There's no other way to put it except that I've truly come full circle. In between then and now, I worked on Howard Dean's presidential campaign, I went to law school, I started my own blog (the Swing State Project), I became a contributing editor at Daily Kos, I earned my J.D., I got married, I practiced law for a number of years, and I watched the Mets lose many, many times.
Last year, Markos—the guy who started this place, whose move to Scoop inspired me to start my own site after using the diaries here, and who gave me an even greater oppotunity to be heard when he elevated me to the front page—gave me the opportunity to turn my hobby into a full-time job. And that, I must say, is the very definition of a dream job: to get paid to do what you'd otherwise do for fun. I can't put into words how incredibly grateful I am to be able to do just that.
And none of it would have been possible without this community. If you clicked through that first link to find my very first comment here at DK, it's nothing special. But just a few days later, I'd already had the chance to soak in this site, and here's what struck me:
Totally unrelated side-note: I am new to this blog and I must say, this has been by far the best online political discussion I have ever seen or taken part in. No ad hominem attacks, no garbage, no abusive posters. Just very thoughtful stuff all around. Well done.
May it always be so. Thank you, Daily Kos.