Last night I explained to the Puppy the difference between liberal and progressive. Obama is a liberal, I am a progressive.

The Dems need us, the progressives, to keep at them.

Last night I watched as a huge barrier to power came down in this country. This morning, as I do every morning, I took the bus back into my old neighborhood and was hit fresh in the face with all the work that still needs to be done. The bus went past the tent city in the U-District that our liberal, Democratic mayor is desperate to to get rid of without actually having to do anything for the homeless people that populate it.

I got to the Central District, and while the faces on the black men that hang around on the corners were decidedly more smiley than normal, I notice that they still don’t have jobs to go to.

And I think back to the ads that kept running on CNN from AARP. The first thing Obama put on the chopping block, before he was even elected, was health care. How brilliant of AARP to run their Divided we fall commercials in between news snippets of the country turning blue all around us. Thank you for reminding me that there are many many many more battles to be fought.

And while watching Obama make his acceptance speech, I couldn’t help but growl a bit when he got a too hypocritical. While i was toughed by the 106 year old black woman who got to vote, hearing Obama talk about women getting the vote grated on my nerves like sandpaper. Obama says he will be the president to everyone, not just those that voted for him. And that he will listen to the voices of his dissenters. Will he really? Will people like me, people he used as fodder for the election, people like my black neighbors who ain’t got a dime in the world let alone a stake in to stock market, will we be heard? Will our needs be met? Or will we be the first sacrifice to political expediency?

I have to remember that our greatest presidents had people like me pulling at the edges to make them do the right thing. Roosevelt had the bonus marchers and the Socialists and the Anarchists to rile up the public. They were the reason that progressive policies were the rule of the day. The elites needed to make concessions to the rabble rousers.

So I have only just begun to fight.