Dear Diane and fellow Congressional Democrats,

As a Californian, I was not happy to see you returning to business as usual under a Democratic president and Congress, a la the first Clinton years.  In case you mis-read the 2008 election, and for that matter the Congressional election of 2006, we the forgotten people of this country are taking our power back.  If you think Democrats were returned to office because the citizenry approves of the way you have handled your authority in the past, you are profoundly mistaken.  We wanted CHANGE, and Obama understands this.  It is not some cosmetic change, or a change in the party in power, but real change, which means that for the first time in my memory policy will be made transparently, not by lobbyists who you carry water for, and with the primary objective of what is best for the country--not what is best for you politically, which in the past has meant, what is best for your corporate or special interest benefactors.  Those days are over, and if you don't get it, and rather return to your habits of obstructing good public policy unless you can insert your backer's corporate agenda into it, or hold Obama's policies hostage to your personal political interests, you will find yourselves in the primary fights of your political lives. 

We, the previously disempowered citizenry, have found our champion, and have created a mass movement that is capable of raising the funds necessary to best the best-heeled of you who have no one but your corporate sponsors behind you.  Look what we were able to do to the Clinton machine that seemingly had the nomination locked up due to the largesse of her huge stable of corporate/special interest backers.  The power of the organized community was stronger than the power of their purse-strings.  This can and will happen to you, too, if you don't move towards the new American politics that Obama is leading us to.

Naturally, no one--not even Obama--expects you to be rubber stamps.  You can and should play a constructive role.  But your flexing of power for power's sake, in a way that undermines the President-elect, is ill-advised.  Your power, believe it or not, comes from us, the populace that voted for you. Now that we have tasted victory, and seen what community organizing can really do, you can no longer count on our support simply because you are an incumbant Democrat.  If you continue acting out of the tired old paradigm that spawned you, you can expect to find yourself opposed in the primaries by true change agents that are funded and fueled by Obama's army. 

This first Congressional session will tell us whether you are a political dinosaur heading for extinction, or whether you are politically nimble and astute enough to go softly into this new paradigm, where you will work cooperatively and transparently as a team player for the public good.  If so, we will take care of you and send you back to Washington for another term.  If not, there are plenty of young and qualilfied candidates that we would love to replace you with.  It's your choice.