Before his Election Night speech last night, Barack sent out this message to suppporters:

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign. We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

We wanted to share this letter written by Suzanne Brown-McBride, Executive Director of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Thank you, Suzanne, for sharing your personal insights with us.
 

Dear Friends,

Like many of you, I am watching this election closely.  I am reading the news, keeping up with the blogs, watching the debates and talking with friends and colleagues about what I think will be one of the most important election decisions in a generation.  With that in mind, I wanted to take a moment to talk to you - person to person - about an issue that is important to me this election year.  I wasn't asked by anyone to write this letter, and I am speaking simply from my perspective and personal experience.

I have been an anti-rape activist for most of my life. Seventeen years ago, I began volunteering at a community based rape crisis program in Oregon.  I answered the crisis line, accompanied victims to the hospital for post-rape examinations and I stayed with them through legal and criminal proceedings.   Back then, we operated on less than a shoe string; our agency's annual budget was less than $7,000 a year.  We did the best we could, and I proud to say that we made a difference in the lives of the women and men that we served.  At the same time, there was a sea of needs that we couldn't meet with our all-volunteer staff.

Our city was starting to take sexual and domestic violence seriously.  Law enforcement wanted to include our advocates at their rookie trainings.  Schools asked for our help to develop classes and training so that kids knew where to turn for help when they were being sexually or physically abused.  Churches and community groups wanted our guidance on how they could work to make our community safe.  It was frustrating and heartbreaking to watch these opportunities slip away because our little organization didn't have the people, resources or infrastructure to meet the demand for our skills and expertise.  In fact, we didn't even have an office.

Then, in 1994, our world changed.  In Washington DC, congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), one of the most important pieces of legislation in our modern history to address sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.  Written with anti-violence organizations, advocated for by anti-rape and anti-battering activists, VAWA finally directed resources to organizations like mine to support our work for, and on behalf of, victims.

And not just my organization.  VAWA directed funds to battered women's shelters, tribal community organizations, rape crisis programs, campus safety programs, violence prevention programs and law enforcement agencies.  When it was later reauthorized, it also included assistance for victims of human trafficking and modern day slavery.  No other single piece of legislation has been more important to my work as an anti-rape activist, or the work that thousands of men and women like me across the United States.

So what does this have to do with the election?  Let me tell you who the primary author and champion of the Violence Against Women Act was: Joe Biden.

Joe Biden stood up for raped and battered women when it didn't occur many others to do so.  Joe Biden championed this legislation every step of the way.  Joe Biden demanded that the United States do more for raped and battered women, children and men.   And Joe Biden made it happen.

Joe Biden didn't walk away after that initial victory.  He may have initially passed legislation during a Democratic administration, but he demonstrated effective and powerful bipartisan cooperation with leaders like Orin Hatch to make sure that the bill was reauthorized during a Republican administration.   He helped make violence against women more than a partisan issue, he made it a human issue.

As a Champion of VAWA, Joe Biden became a friend to my work, and has stayed a friend ever since.  While he was in the Illinois Senate, and when he joined Joe Biden in our federal Senate, Barack Obama co-sponsored legislation to assist victims of sexual assault - including co-sponsoring VAWA.   While there is still much to do to make sure that the silent, violent epidemic of rape and battering are forever eradicated here in the US, VAWA was a watershed moment in our fight.

Conversely, and tragically, Senator John McCain twice voted against VAWA.  In doing so, Sen. McCain twice choose to deny victims of battery and brutality the services that they deserve in the aftermath of violence.

I hope that as you consider your choice in this year's election that you keep victims of violence in mind.  I hope that you look carefully at the records of each candidate who is running for office and ask yourself "who has made a difference in the lives of the women, children and men who are victimized in my community?".  I can't answer that for all of the candidates that you are considering in November, but I can tell you with great confidence about one candidate that has changed every jurisdiction in this country with his leadership: Joe Biden.

By Cass R. Sunstein

There has been much debate about whether Sen. John McCain is a candidate of change. But in one area, McCain is unquestionably a reformer. He would almost certainly make fundamental changes in the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court.

McCain has said that, should he be president, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito "would serve as the model for my own nominees." He regularly attacks what he calls "activist judging," and he described a recent ruling vindicating the right to habeas corpus as "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." McCain has repeatedly said that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled.

If McCain is elected, change would clearly be coming to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in constitutional law, the Republican presidential nominee is anything but conservative. Once skeptical of the idea that the court should overrule Roe v. Wade, he now invokes the clichés and code words of the extreme right. His votes have matched his words, for he has been a proud and enthusiastic supporter of President George W. Bush's most extreme appointees to the courts of appeals.

Recently McCain complained of "the common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power. For decades now, some federal judges have taken it upon themselves to pronounce and rule on matters that were never intended to be heard in courts or decided by judges."

In his view, the "system of checks and balances rarely disappoints," but "there is one great exception in our day": the Supreme Court. McCain aims to eliminate that exception. It is more than mere speculation to suggest that with judicial appointments, McCain may well follow the extreme right-wing of his party.

The court is already dominated by Republican appointees, and in the last 20 years, it has shifted dramatically to the right. The next president is expected to be able to appoint at least one -- and possibly as many as three -- new members. Even a single appointment would likely shift constitutional law in major ways.

The right to choose remains sharply contested within the Supreme Court -- and the Republican Party and the pro-life movement have long sought to eliminate that right. The McCain-Palin ticket plans first to "return the abortion question to the individual states" and then "to end abortion at the state level."

We might well return to a period in which states threatened to subject pregnant women, and their doctors, with jail sentences for exercising the right to choose. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and there is no doubt that many states would attempt to enact that belief into law.

But abortion is only the tip of the iceberg.

Consider McCain's astounding statement that the court's recent vindication of the right to habeas corpus is among "the worst decisions" in the nation's history. (As bad as Dred Scott v. Sandford, entrenching slavery? As bad as Lochner v. New York, striking down maximum hour laws? As bad as Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding racial segregation?) McCain's favorite justices -- Roberts and Alito -- have consistently sided with the Bush administration in cases involving the constitutional authority of the president. Under a President McCain, their dissenting views might well become the law of the land.

The Supreme Court has already struck down provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Violence Against Women Act. A McCain court would go further. Some Republican appointees have raised constitutional doubts about provisions of the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. With new members on the court, important environmental laws would face fresh constitutional scrutiny.

In the last decade, Republican appointees to the bench have led a constitutional attack on affirmative-action programs. But in some areas, like education, for example, government is allowed to engage in a modest degree of affirmative action. With an appointment or two by a McCain administration, affirmative-action programs might be banned entirely.

Does the Constitution allow Congress to enact campaign-finance reform? McCain clearly thinks so. But his favorite justices -- Roberts and Alito -- have severe doubts. Campaign-finance proposals already face acute constitutional doubts. With one or two McCain appointments, most such proposals may well become constitutionally unthinkable.

All this offers merely a glimpse. Some Republican appointees want to restrict citizens' rights of access to federal courts, to give commercial advertising the same level of protection as political dissent, to provide new protection to property rights (at the expense of environmental law), to narrow the court's decisions involving sex discrimination, and much more.

There is a major irony here. McCain calls for "strict construction" and "judicial restraint," and he rejects "legislating from the bench." But in countless areas, conservative appointees avoid strict construction, and they are all too willing to legislative from the bench.

There is a close connection between the constitutional views of McCain's his preferred judges and the political views of the extreme right-wing of the GOP. To say the least, it would be a startling coincidence if the best interpretation of the Constitution turned out, fairly consistently, to entrench the political views of one or another side.

When McCain calls for "strict construction" and "judicial restraint" while opposing "judicial legislation," no one should be fooled. Is it "restrained" for justices to invalidate campaign-finance laws and provisions of the Violence Against Women Act? Is it "strict construction" to strike down affirmative-action programs, to ban Congress from allowing citizens to sue in federal court, to give unprecedented protection to property rights?

When McCain speaks of strict construction and restraint, he is speaking in code. He is signaling his desire to produce large-scale change in the direction favored by the far right -- for starters, and above all, by overruling Roe v. Wade.

It is not at all clear that a McCain administration would seek to reorient current practices in the domestic arena or in foreign policy. But there is no doubt that in constitutional law, McCain favors fundamental change.

The question remains: Is this really the change we need?

On a cloudless August night in Denver, before a united party and thousands of grassroots supporters from all across America, Senator Obama accepted the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Obama made the case for why America cannot afford four more years of the same failed policies and laid out his vision to bring about fundamental change at home and abroad. He reminded us of the extraordinary promise of America at its best and challenged us to continue to fight for that promise, to march ahead, to not turn back...

..

That promise is our greatest inheritance.  It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours – a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things.  They could've heard words of anger and discord.  They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead – people of every creed and color, from every walk of life – is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked.  That together, our dreams can be one.

“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried.  “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.  We cannot turn back.”

America, we cannot turn back.  Not with so much work to be done.  Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for.  Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save.  Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.  America, we cannot turn back.  We cannot walk alone.  At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future.  Let us keep that promise – that American promise – and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

To all of our supporters, from those who have been with this remarkable campaign from the beginning to those of you who are just joining this movement for change: if you agree that we cannot turn back now -- that this is our moment to seize -- please make a donation today.

Continue reading for the full remarks as prepared for delivery...