So now what?

We lost the cloture vote, but that was -- despite some of your best wishes -- a pre-ordained conclusion. But that doesn't mean we lost on the bigger picture.

What you guys accomplished the last week was amazing -- the outpouring of emails, letters, faxes, and phone calls was unprecedented for the netroots and particularly surprising given how weak our issue groups organized against Alito. We should've played a supporting role to strong efforts by NARAL, People for the American Way, and others. Instead, we ended up being pretty much the entire effort.

But say what you will about blogs and the netroots, we are not effective organizers for this type of large-scale effort, with an opposition wielding tens of millions of dollars. That we got this much accomplished in the fact of that is simply incredible.

So we are now on the map. The Alito vote may have fizzled, but you better believe the Dem establishment knows we exist. So what's next? Well, we channel that energy into doing something that would've improved our chances to stop Alito -- getting more Democrats elected to the Senate. And the more likely the chances of success in something like this, the more likely senators are to join the bandwagon.

As I wrote before, the numbers in the Senate always worked against us. We need to increase the number of Dems in order to give Red state Democrats (who we very much need) the cover they need on votes like these. That's the single most important thing we can do. So, I rerun this advice:

We need more Dems, and we need more good Dems. Tester's headline on his campaign website states that he'd vote "no" on Alito. Let's replace Conrad Burns with him. In Vermont, Bernie Sanders would be an easy "no" and a much more reliable progressive vote than Jeffords ever was. Both Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse in Rhode Island would be reliable "no" votes, and much more likely to filibuster than Lincoln Chafee.

In Ohio, both Paul Hackett and Sherrod Brown would be guaranteed votes against Alito. While Missouri's Claire McCaskill said she wouldn't filibuster Alito, she would vote against him.

With these top-tier pickup opportunities alone (not including PA, where Bob Casey is suddenly running to the Right of Attila the Hun, and TN, where Harold Ford might not always vote with us), Dems would suddenly be at 49. And that's what we call a "margin of error". Able to lose 9 senators and still uphold a filibuster, we could protect our Red state Dems and still hold the line against reactionary ideologues like Alito.

And, we work our asses off, we can put states like Arizona (Jim Pederson) and Nevada (Jack Carter) in play.

Ahh, you're thinking, we can say "fuck Ford and Casey", right? Absolutely not. Those guys, even if they might vote for an Alito, would vote for Harry Reid as majority leader, and the Dems would control the chamber's committees. And we all know how much mischief the governing party could make in committee. We saw dozens of Clinton's judicial nominees held hostage in committee for nearly his entire term in office.

In addition (this isn't an "either/or" situation), make sure you sign up to support Ned Lamont in his potential primary challenge against Joe Lieberman. If you are in Connecticut, fantastic. If not, it doesn't matter. We all can help rid the Senate of its chief Fox News Democrat and get ourselves a better (D) than Lieberman has been in recent years.

You are angry. Good. Now channel that anger into something positive -- the need to change our nation for the better.

While this may feel like a huge loss (and it is), understand that it's not the end of the road. Republicans are still fighting to turn back the country to the 18th century, and we're all that stands in the way. And we are doomed to keep losing until we boost our numbers in both the House and the Senate. That's the ONLY way we will prevail.

As Matt Stoller notes, we are making progress, no matter how hopeless it may seem right now.