Dear readers: We promised recently we’d soon be getting off our donkey and rejoining the Organizing for America phone banks to help get out the vote for Tues. Nov. 2. Our cell phones are recharged and we’re back in action.

Here’s what you can do: Click the  Organizing for America web site (myBarackObama.com) and quickly find how you can make phone calls from home, or join a phone bank near you to call potential voters to urge them to come out on Tues. Nov. 2 (or vote early if their state allows) and vote Democratic. Folks, it’s kind of important. If you need information about voting, click RaiseYourVote.com. Forward this link.

“Enthusiasm gap”? Let’s not leave anything to chance.

Consider what can happen if you stay home: Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell won her Delaware GOP primary by about 2,500 votes. Democrat Scott Murphy of New York’s 20th congressional district won the 2009 special election by 401 votes. And, on a slightly more consequential level, in 2000 George W. Bush won the state of Florida (or did he?) by 537 votes. Please don’t think your vote doesn’t count. (If you want to be scared into voting Democratic, read this Halloween-worthy column by Paul Krugman, “Divided We Fail.”)

Now, we completely understand reasons for not wanting to pull that Dem. lever. We have been among the complainers, the pajama-clad bloggers of the “professional Left” who have, according to Joe Biden, “whined” about the Democrats not accomplishing more (not pushing harder against the GOP wall of opposition). But the V.P. has a point when he says “don’t compare us to the Almighty; compare us to the alternative.” We really don’t want to go there, America. We really don’t want the Rand Paul Stomp, as shown in this commercial produced by the Kentucky Democratic Party:

Significant Accomplishments in 2 Years

Despite unyielding opposition and a blizzard of disinformation from the Republican Noise Machine, the Obama administration and the Democrat-led Congress have staved off a collapse of the American financial system; passed a strong stimulus bill that created or saved some 3+ million jobs; passed a health care reform bill that will expand coverage to 30+ million and save some $1 trillion over the next 10 years; signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act that tripled the size of AmeriCorps; pushed for a $50 billion National Infrastructure Bank; appointed an exemplary administrator of FEMA (this is important) and other exceptional cabinet secretaries, and much more.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired?

We have a civic duty to help limit the damage that can and will be inflicted by radical Tea Party Republicans who think women have no right to choose, unemployment insurance is unconstitutional, Social Security and Medicare should be abolished and/or privatized, and worse. There are 111 GOP incumbents who want to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. And the forecast is for many more Republicans in Congress? These are not the remedies our nation needs right now. Although some of the concerns originally driving early members may have been sincere, the Tea Party as it is now is not a grassroots movement: it is corporate-sponsored, establishment-driven. Ask Dick Armey and the billionaire Koch brothers.

Now is the time for all good citizens to save their country from its darker impulses.

And when this election is over, please remain active. (We made the same plea in 2008.) Keep phoning and writing and organizing to keep the pressure on the elected Democrats to do the progressive thing: Have the courage to wind down the wars, invest more in America, generate jobs here at home, increase spending on infrastructure and clean energy, increase spending on health care and education and housing, protect Social Security and Medicare, and reduce the Defense budget. Raise taxes on the wealthy and the superwealthy, back to the Clinton-era or even Reagan-era rates. (Many Dems are afraid to push for this; let ’em know it’s popular.) Whatever it is you want, keep up the pressure on your elected officials. You know the conservatives aren’t sitting back waiting for their agenda to be enacted. Liberals, progressives, Democrats need to learn a thing or two from them (methods, that is, not policy).

That link again is Organizing for America (an outgrowth of the Obama-Biden 2008 campaign, now affiliated with the Democratic party). Please join us, and urge all your friends, family, and neighbors to vote Democratic. Thank you.