Win one for the Ted. To Massachusetts: Vote.

But make no mistake, the stakes in the election of Massachusetts are enormous, incalculable and potentially permanent if Democrats will no longer control 60 seats, no matter how weakly, for the duration of the Obama presidency.

The road to what we believe is to vote, to get others to vote, to bring out every voter who cares about real change, about making a real fight, about taking the real actions to make this country better.

I will not be writing many more essays such as this if the president doesn’t stand up harder and fight, if Democrats in Congress do not remember who put them there, and why.

But today, tomorrow and Tuesday the case is clear, the stakes are enormous, the reasons to vote are incalculable, and the consequences of losing are indescribable because weak as it, and it is weak, if Massachusetts votes to elect a Tea Party Republican to the Senate, the 60 votes will be gone for the remainder of the Obama presidency. That would be a tragedy for all of the things we believe in.

For Democrats in Massachusetts: Vote.

For progressives in Massachusetts: Vote.

For independents in Massachusetts: Vote, and understand very clearly that those of us appalled by the rip-offs and joblessness and injustices in the modern economy will be even more appalled if Massachusetts elects to the Senate a Tea Party Republican masquerading as a phony reformer who will not be 10 percent the reformer Martha Coakley would be.

To first-time voters from 2006 and 2008, I hear you, I am with you. We have not gotten nearly the change we were promised, but we will get far more change, and far more justice, and far more jobs, with the seat held by Jack and Ted Kennedy remaining Democratic and not being taken by a right-wing impostor.

So: Vote, vote, vote. Understand how high the stakes really are and vote, because if we have learned one thing from the election of George W. Bush, it is the importance of every vote being voted, and every voter being counted.