I got a fundraising letter in the mail last week from Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who is up for re-election in the spring. Democrats just took over the Wisconsin Assembly, giving them control of both legislative houses and the governorship -- they have an extremely tough budget project ahead of them and will be fought tooth and nail by the minority GOP. The Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate isn't going to have 60 members, let alone 60 members that could be counted on for every cloture vote.

In his victory speech Tuesday, Obama said that his win was not the change that his campaign pursued; it was the chance to make the change happen. Making it happen means keeping your checkbooks out, your feet on the ground and your mouth open. The year after a presidential election is typically when government and voters pay the least attention to each other, and if that happens in 2009 this was all for nothing.