It's crunch time.  It's time to get the main messages out. With candidate speeches and blogs, big money ads and homemade video, with all the means there are. Because it's not going to be as easy as it sounds from the latest batch of predictions, each inflating the other.  It's going to take work to close the deal.

It's time for Democrats to tell their story, and the first thing the party must recognize is that they need to tell it from the beginning.  That's where most good stories start, but there are real world reasons for what I mean.

From the beginning means: don't assume.  Don't assume voters know a lot.  Don't be condescending or phony, but just deal with that fact.  And understand the story they want to hear this election year.