"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".
-Thomas Jefferson

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die".
-Ted Kennedy

The election is over, but the fight has just begun.
---
brownsox of DailyKos aptly writes:
Are you feeling good? I hope so.

The 2008 election was a great victory for Democrats, for progressives, and for the United States of America, and we should get to enjoy it.

However, at some point, the hangover from the election will wear off, and it should become apparent how much work we, as Democrats and progressives, have yet to do - and the pressure to deliver on our electoral victory immediately. Thomas Jefferson said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The same could be said of the price of victory at the polls - they hold elections every two years for a reason, and this is no time to rest on our laurels.

Democrats have a mandate from the American people - they do not have a carte blanche. This mandate isn't an affirmation, it's a command - a command to govern well, to deliver what the Republicans have failed to deliver.

America is not a center-right country, and the nation has emphatically declared this. However, we're still engaged in the fight to make it a solidly, unmistakably center-left country. The 2008 election doesn't end that fight...Waiting in the wings, of course, is a GOP which will be gunning for Obama and for the Democratic congress and Democratic state leadership from Day One. Republicans are at their lowest ebb in decades - but they're not dead, and they're waiting to regroup...They're out for blood now, and any screwups by the Obama administration, the Democratic Congress, and Democratic leadership anywhere in the country will make the entire party cannon fodder for Republicans.

So what do we do, to ensure we maintain what we've won, to ensure we're able to build on it? Again, the first and most essential step is simply to govern well. Democratic leadership must deliver immediate, tangible results on healthcare, economic recovery, and withdrawal from Iraq. No one should expect everything to be solved by March 2009 - it won't. It will take years to undo the damage the past eight years have wrought on our nation and the world. But if we move in the proper direction, if we deliver on the mandate, we'll keep winning elections.

This isn't going to be done by moving to the center, nor by kowtowing to Republicans. Rather, the essential aspect of ensuring continuing Democratic strength is by pushing Democratic ideas and principles - by proving that there really are differences between us and them, on healthcare, on economic policy, on international policy - and that our ideas are better, work better and yield superior results.

Bill Clinton had to move to the center largely out of necessity, as he was elected in the midst of a conservative ascendancy. Obama, elected in the midst of a Democratic ascendancy, does not have to do this - and hopefully, he will not. Undoubtedly he'll do a few things that disappoint progressives, but there's no reason he has to become a Third Way politician by nature - nor a reason to expect that he will.

This brings us to the second branch of ensuring that a progressive, Democratic ascendancy continues - we have to be vigilant. We have to be ever willing to hold our Democratic leadership's feet to the fire - and yes, that includes President-elect Obama. No one is expecting perfection from either the Administration or the Congress - but it does not help at all to ignore whatever mistakes are made. We ought to have faith in our new administration and Congress to deliver good governance at long last - but not blind faith. Keeping a watchful eye on our leadership is the best way to ensure they remain responsive to progressives; blind faith in leadership is the surest way to ensure they take us for granted.

Electing Barack Obama is a beautiful, landmark moment in America's history. But in political terms, that's where the process of change begins, not where it ends. In politics, as Ted Kennedy once said, the fight for change never ends.
http://www.dailykos.com/sto...