The real work is done away from the cameras & down in the trenches, whether working on the Hill or as a catalyst mobilizing voters back home.

Excerpts from:

Democrats Are on the Wrong Battlefield
By Colbert I. King
The Washington Post

If John Roberts is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, as now seems likely -- barring a shocker in his record or his past -- the reasons he made it won't be solely his résumé or the support of President Bush. The groundwork for Roberts's elevation to the high court -- and the likelihood of success for future Bush Supreme Court nominees -- was laid nearly three years ago in Georgia, Minnesota and Missouri, and last November in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana and South Dakota, when Republicans captured eight Democratic Senate seats.

Today, with Republicans holding 55 seats and having a good chance of landing the votes of some Democrats, the White House enters the Supreme Court fights in excellent shape. That thought alone has some in Washington seized with myocardial infarctions. But they have only themselves to blame.

Self-designated as a government in exile, Democratic Party activists have spent recent election cycles working their fannies off for that glorious day in January when they, as victors, could show the door to a vanquished Republican administration. For members of Washington's Democratic administration-in-waiting, winning the White House has been the only game in town. The presidency, in their view, is the instrument to make the way straight and easy for all who wage war against the heathen right.

Winning judicial nomination fights in Washington over the next three years will require scoring victories far beyond the Beltway. Good places to start? Next year's U.S. Senate races in Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming.

Unlike churning out news releases and holding grip-and-grin sessions around Washington, that takes real work.