You have to understand that the war doesn't end tomorrow, or a month from now, or whenever the hell one guy finally concedes. A Kerry loss would be horrible, a Kerry win would be wonderful, but the fight continues either way.

Think about the people (good journalists, mid-level government employees, 9/11 widows) who've fought to bring the truth about the Bush administration's screwups to light -- if Bush does win, that fight continues. And we have to fight to avert economic disaster and to keep some sanity on the federal bench. We have to fight any expansion of the Patriot Act, and we have to fight creeping theocracy. We need to save abortion rights and progressive taxation. And on and on. Those fights aren't lost if Bush ekes out a win -- they just get a lot harder, which means we just have to fight harder. (Bush will help us, though -- do you think he's going to stop screwing up? If it turns out that we as a nation haven't quite reached a tipping point for disgust with Bush, I am certain we will soon if he wins, because he's just not capable of being a competent president.)

And needless to say, the fight doesn't end if Kerry wins. The conservatives will start trying to hamstring him even before Bush concedes -- and they'll never, ever stop. When they push, we need to be there to push back.

And however this election turns out, we've got to get Congress back. I think the race has to be nationalized in '06 -- '06 should be for the Democrats what '94 was for the Republicans.

OK. Now we have to get out the damn vote.