we extanneded -- when al fanken is seated, i guess we have the official 60 members. [applause] we all worked incredibly hard electing him to be our president. with that election, the work we did was a frans transformational election. how we talk about issues, the economy, race, what mattered. about how we saw policies and government. getting rid of trickle down -- understanding that government was good for all of us. it helped us understand what grassroots can do. people came toble together because they -- people came together because they wanted to build a movement for change, not just take little steps for change. i think that's what this campaign was about, to build a grassroots election about making change happen. that's what we did, and now it's what we need to do, which is actually not just have the opportunity to make change happen, but actually make it happen. our country needs to more than we've ever needed it before, because president obama really inherited a mess. let's be honest here. 8.9% unemployment. higher for african-american and latino and going up.