Obama: Just the beginning

This is the lesson Howard Dean tried to teach in his campaign, and it's a lesson Barack Obama has been pushing: Electing a president is only the starting point. Winning the battle to put Obama in the White House is vital, but once he's there, we've just started the real work.

This is why "down-ticket" is so vital. It does no good to give a Democratic President a Republican Congress. Look at the limits on what Clinton was able to do when he lost the Congress (ok, his other problems added to that). The changes this country need have the champion that we need in Obama, but he has to have the support in the Senate and the House to turn those needs into laws. If Oregon does not replace Gordon Smith with Jeff Merkley, we will not only give Obama one fewer vote in the Senate, we'll cancel out another vote — Ron Wyden's.

The same logic applies here in Oregon. The more Democrats we elect to the Oregon Legislature, the more we can undo the awful work of past GOP-controlled Legs. And the only way we can make these changes — more money for school, tax fairness, environmental policy that saves the state from ruin — is to ensure that everyone who votes, votes all the way down the ticket. Hundreds of thousands of people will vote for Obama here in Oregon. We need every one of them to vote for Jeff Merkley as well. And the Dems running for the House. And Nick Kahl and Greg Matthews and all the great Dems, incumbent and challenger, running for the Oregon Legislature.

Because as wonderful as it will be to have Obama in the White House, if we don't have Dems in office all the way down, from Congress to state houses to city halls, the change that is possible will be limited.

And the most important part of all this is the citizens. We who work for Obama to get him into office have to understand thoroughly: When he takes office, he'll need us even more then he'll need a Democratic Congress. For supporters of the change that is needed, the inauguration is also the day we take office — as Obama's grassroots ambassadors of change.