Today the bus tour took us to a Democratic rally in Norwich, where Ned met a group of 40 or so who are going to be working field for us in that city. Then we hit Rein's Deli - a personal favorite of mine, as it is in Vernon - right between our legendary campaign manager Tom Swan's house where I'm staying and the campaign headquarters (I hit Rein's every day I can for bagels and lox). Ned met folks eating lunch, and then went behind the counter to meet the employees, while the campaign team wolfed down sandwiches (I can tell you from firsthand experience - the turkey pastrami there is great).

Then it was on to Hartford for Ned's final keynote speech of the campaign. The location was appropriate to this people-powered movement he's built: he gave his speech to SEIU 1199.

There is no doubt in my mind this was Ned's best performance of the campaign, and I'm betting most of the reporters who have followed this race and who were there would agree. Last night, Ned asked me for some summary points I thought he should include, and I stayed up pretty late writing them (He never usually reads speeches, but instead takes the factual points he asks us to get him and decides how to use them in his own way).

But on the bus ride there, it was obvious he was not going to use what I had come up with, as he sat silently and just thought about what he wanted to say. And I'm really glad he decided to ignore what I gave him - because he spoke from the heart in a way that really crystallized what this race is all about.

Surrounded by his family and campaign supporters, Ned began the speech by citing lines from Joe's "closing argument" speech (read: last hurrah eulogy) and showing just how dishonest they are. Take Joe's whiney accusations that Ned is a "polarizer" who has engaged in "negative finger-pointing" and "name-calling." As Ned said, it wasn't our campaign that publicly called our opponent a "jerk" - no, that was the self-anointed Deity of Senate Civility, Joe Lieberman. It wasn't our campaign who likened our opponents to Osama bin Laden lovers - no, that was Joe "My Opponents Want to Blow Up Planes" Lieberman. It wasn't our campaign that used an illegal slush fund to hire professional Lieberthugz to trample seniors and try to physically intimidate our opponent at Veterans' Day parades - no, that was Joe and his "politics of unity and purpose."

Then Ned talked about Joe's claim that "If you want to send a real message for positive change in Washington, send me." To refute this, Ned could have simply cited today's New Haven Register piece that said "it's difficult to see how an 18-year incumbent is going to lead the charge for change in Congress." But he didn't need a newspaper validater to state the obvious: Ned got into this race because Connecticut is being represented by a human manifestation of a rubber stamp that enjoys printing "STAY THE COURSE" on anything President Bush or Vice President Cheney send down from the White House, no matter how many American soldiers are killed. That's unacceptable - and that's why it's time for a change.

Ned ended his speech by addressing the two central theses of Joe's entire campaign: 1) that nebulous "bipartisanship" in pursuit of anything - even horrific things like the Iraq War or the Energy Bill - is the real goal of politics, not positive change and 2) that  anyone who criticizes Joe or asks that he use Connecticut's senate seat for the people of Connecticut is a "negative partisan polarizing finger-pointer."

Ned has an entirely different vision. As he has said on the campaign trail many times before and repeated today, career politicians like Joe see things only as "partisan" instead of right and wrong, that "bipartisanship" in pursuit of terrible goals is no virtue, and that it is not "negative" to ask questions of a government that is hurting its people - it is, in fact, a senator's constitutional responsibility, especially during a time of war.

That Joe has abdicated that responsibility and stated firmly that he believes questioning our government "undermines presidential credibility at our nation's peril" is a fact even Joe himself doesn't make a serious effort to deny. The truth is, Joe himself is one of the most negative partisan polarizing finger-pointers in American politics - his form of negative partisan polarizing finger pointing comes in the form of him attacking courageous people as "negative partisan polarizing finger-pointers." But what Joe is really saying in that kind of attack is "Uncle."

You see, he doesn't want to talk about actual issues - he wants to simply mouth soothing phrases like "bipartisanship" and "getting things done" because he knows Ned's focus on actual issues is destroying his chances of getting back to the comfortable confines of Sunday chat show green rooms, C-SPAN symposiums and Washington cocktail parties - the places where the chickenhawks who spend their lives in air conditioned D.C. offices cheer him on just as they cheer on policies that kill and maim more and more American soldiers.

When the day finally ended at our last rally in Danbury at the Portugese Cultural Center, Ned looked wistful addressing the throng that had assembled (the picture from this event is the one with this post). He recounted how when he got in this race, no one said he could make any difference at all, and how far we've come. As my wife would tell you, I'm not one for crying - but I'm big enough to admit that I, Tim Tagaris and a lot of others there had trouble keeping it together, not out of sadness, but out of admiration for what he - and all of us - have achieved, regardless of what happens tomorrow.

This is a campaign not against Joe Lieberman - but against a man who has become an institution and a symbol - one that has come to represent all that is wrong with politics today. Ned's campaign changed the country on the War in Iraq. It's not a coincidence that since the primary, Republicans, Democrats, military officials and retired Bush administration icons have all come out and said that it's time for a change in Iraq.  That's what Ned courageously said 10 months ago, even as Joe Lieberman and his $30,000-a-month goons called him a terrorist for it. And when he kept pushing it, he pushed the whole country.

Even as the waning hours of the campaign coincide with a sharp increase in American casualties, Joe once again dismissed Iraq as just "one issue." But like Ned says, it affects everything because it is tied to everything - our ability to invest at home, our national security, global stability, everything. The fact that a campaign by an earnest non-career politician in the little state of Connecticut has so intensely impacted one of the most pressing geopolitical crises in a generation is such an unfathomably large achievement, that I'm genuinely embarrassed not just for Joe but for our whole country that in the face of this incredibly important reality, Joe's website today fronts pictures of the senator with puppies and yuck-yuck petty personal attacks on Lamont campaign staffers like me.

I'm tired - real tired. But I'm also excited because I know tomorrow we are going to make history. So with the bus tour over and election day now just a few hours away, I want to leave you one thought, and one simple request:

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who bow down and worship power, and those who stand up and challenge power. When you walk into the ballot box tomorrow, please ask yourself: which kind of person are you or do you want to be? When you do that, I guarantee it - all the dishonest TV ads, misleading slogans and canned rhetoric that is designed by the Joe Liebermans of the world to confuse you will melt away. Suddenly, you will know in your heart who your choice is to represent you for the next six years.