Back in 2004 I knew about dailykos, and I visited when I needed a pick-me-up, but I was not a dedicated user (perhaps I should say addict) as I am today (probably reading 50-75 diaries a day these days). In 2006 I became a much more dedicated viewer, but I still didn't have an account and I just liked to watch from afar. Only this year did I start posting some diaries, but mostly I like to enjoy reading the awesome things others have to say. So in that spirit, I wanted to take a more comprehensive look back at what was going on then, so I turned to archive.org. It's surely not the most satisfying record, they don't have some dates, and kind of frustratingly they don't have November 7th, 2006 (election day) so I can't see the diaries (FWIW, I can go back and look at the main page via entering an old n here: http://dailykos.com/... But still, the links on archive.org work (if you clean them up a bit) and in reading the front page you can get a pretty good idea of the mood. I was completely impressed by the optimism and prescience even in the face of dramatically upsetting results. I hope that now as we are on the brink of victorious jubilation, that we can pause and remember how far we've come.
More on the flip-side