We will get out 300 wooden cubes, each representing about a million people, and lay them out on the floor, where the map of the U.S. is already outlined.

Squatting in the cold Atlantic, we begin near home, stacking six blocks somewhere along the Mass. Turnpike (we have a population of about six million). Turning north, we lay down one block each for New Hampshire and Maine.

We get up, walk around the top of Maine, and sit on Lake Erie. There we fill in Vermont (1), New York (carefully building a tower of 19 blocks), Pennsylvania (12), Ohio (11), and Michigan (10).

Leaning out, we place blocks on Indiana (6) and Illinois (13).

Crawling west to the chilly waters of Lake Superior, we set up Wisconsin and Minnesota (5 each). Stretching, we can just reach North Dakota (1).

So far we’ve used only 91 blocks — still 209 to go! Most Americans live elsewhere.

To get more done faster, we step west across Canada and stand in the powerful surf of the Pacific. It’s a challenge to stack up 36 blocks on California without them toppling over. Amazing how many Californians there are!

Jumping from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, we create of tower of 23 blocks on Texas, take care of Mississippi (3) and Alabama (5), move on to Georgia (10). Relaxing in warm coastal waters, we put 18 blocks on Florida.

We’ve now used almost two-thirds of our blocks and haven’t even needed to set foot on U.S. land.

We stop now for lack of time (and patience), but we’ve built a fairly good model of the population of our country.

It’s clear at a glance that the four states with far greater numbers of people are California, Texas, New York, and Florida.

No wonder they have so much political clout. Whereas Massachusetts has 10 U.S. Representatives, California has a whopping 53, Texas 32, New York 29, and Florida 25.

But our Founding Fathers devised a radical solution to give power to small-population states. The Constitution specifies exactly two senators for each state, regardless of how many people live there.

In Massachusetts, we have as much voting power in the Senate as California, with its far greater population. California currently has two Democratic senators representing 36 million people, while Kennedy and Kerry represent only 6 million.

Though fewer than half a million live in Wyoming, it has two (Republican) senators. A Republican stronghold, Wyoming voted two-to-one for McCain/Palin last month.

When it comes to legislation needed to take action on urgent matters—such as global warming, the economic meltdown, and the health care crisis, to name just three—those
Wyoming voters who were two-to-one against Obama will inevitably play some role (through their senators) in legislation affecting the whole country’s three hundred million people.

U.S. actions profoundly affect the rest of the world, and thus those Wyoming senators — representing only half a million people — have an undue influence over the global population of almost seven thousand million people (that is, seven billion).

I mention Wyoming because it happens to be the smallest state by population. But many other states with fairly small populations—through their pair of senators— play an outsized role in the health of our country and planet.

Take Oklahoma. With a population under 4 million, it would get four blocks.

Two-thirds of Oklahomans voted against Obama last month, and Republican Senator Inhofe easily won reelection with almost 60 percent of the vote. He’s the senator who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” while chairing the Senate environmental committee. Though the committee is now led by a Democrat, Inhofe as the ranking Republican still can have some effect.

The number of Democrats in the Senate will increase in January, but Republicans—when unified—can mount filibusters, delaying action on any bill they wish.

To avoid filibusters, Senate Democrats will of necessity compromise with some Republicans on certain details even at the subcommittee stage. (Democrats with differing priorities have to compromise with each other too.)

It will be interesting to assess Senate votes by state in 2009 and compare them to the views of the American population as a whole.

Fortunately, our new President was elected in many states with good margins. We hope that fact will influence many senators when they vote on legislation that Obama makes top priority.

… he’ll revitalize our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the global challenges of our time.

Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, President Clinton and the Democrats did it before.

Claire McCaskill
John McCain is running for four more years of the same old politics and exact same failed policies that we had under George Bush. They did tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, they’re doing everything Big Oil asks for, and look where we are.

Jean Shaheen
No more country-club economics at the expense of working families and no more tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

Lydia Sanchez
There are people listening to me right now who think that the outcome of this election won’t affect them. It will. It will determine whether you have a champion on your side, … or whether you get more of the same failed leadership that has given hard-working families the shaft.

Katherine Marcano
I am tired and overwhelmed, stuck in a system that tells me there is not enough funding for disabled kids like my sister. I am told we have to wait, we have to be patient. But I am running out of patience. And I am done waiting.

Al Gore
Eight years ago, some said there was not much difference between the nominees of the two major parties and it didn’t really matter who became president. … here we all are in 2008, and I doubt anyone would argue now that election didn’t matter.

…John McCain … is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them. The same policies all over again? Hey, I believe in recycling, but that’s ridiculous.

Bill Clinton
They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more.  Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks.  In this case, the third time is not the charm.

Barbara Boxer
Instead of a president with an Exxon policy, we’ll have a president with an energy policy. … Let’s elect Barack Obama so that the world’s economic and environmental leader will clearly be our nation—the United States of America.

Bob Casey Jr
… he’ll pursue the common good by seeking common ground, rather than trying to divide us. … John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That’s not a maverick. That’s a sidekick.

Barbara Mikulski
You know how we women are. We make our to-do lists. We check off our accomplishments. We get things done! And that’s exactly what we Democrats are going to do when we take back the White House!

Ted Kennedy
Yes, we are Americans. … We reach the moon. We scale the heights.  I know it.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve lived it. And we can do it again. … if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination-not merely victory for our party, but renewal for our nation.

The Reverend Leah Daughtry
It is our sacred responsibility to advocate for all the people, most especially the least, the last, and the lost, the discouraged and the despondent, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed. For them and for ourselves, for the work that must be done, for the bridges that must be built, for the children who must be saved, for the sick who must be healed, for the last who must be first.

Joe Biden
Millions of Americans have been knocked down. And this is the time as Americans, together, we get back up. Our people are too good, our debt to our parents and grandparents too great, our obligation to our children is too sacred.

Barack Obama
Our government should work for us, not against us.  It should help us, not hurt us.  It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.

That’s the promise of America – the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

There’s not enough money in some neighborhoods for basic services, like prompt response to fires. There’s not enough money to maintain adequately what previous generations generously left to us, such as libraries, parks, bridges, and municipal buildings.

We the People – through our elected government — are letting things slide, even with the knowledge that a vibrant economy demands public investment in our collective future.

Many Americans are struggling with medical bills, college expenses, and school fees while still paying for food, housing, fuel, insurance, and local taxes.

Most of us can’t save enough for future needs, even at a time when company retirement benefits are at risk or nonexistent.

And the more public services slide, the more pressure people feel to come up with additional money, such as for private tutoring to enhance their children’s ability to get into college.

And how does our Republican-led government tackle these issues?

While fighting a disastrous war, mismanaging public funds, and burdening future generations with a staggering national debt, its priorities are to cut taxes on the super-rich, leaving even less money for public services.

During campaigns, you’ll hear Republican talk about “compassionate conservatism” and leaving “no child behind.” You’ll hear bragging about the jobs they’ll create and how cutting taxes will boost everyone’s standard of living. You’ll see a focus on the most divisive topics, on which people of goodwill differ, rather than on issues that affect everyone’s well-being.

But when the election is over, what is the priority of the Republican Party?

Answer: Cutting taxes on those who aren’t struggling at all.

You may recall that within a year of President Bush’s taking office, with a Republican-controlled Congress providing enthusiastic votes, the rich were given huge tax cuts, phased in over several years.

One of the ways to mask the unfairness of the cuts was to make the disproportionate benefits to the wealthy less obvious at the time. The cut for middle-income Americans, initially around $400, is planned to rise to about $800 by 2010. But for the average super-rich, the cut will go from an initial $3,000 to $85,000 in 2010.

The Republican tax law of 2001 provides for the repeal of the estate tax in 2010. Estate taxes are levied on wealth transferred from one generation to the next. (Unless you’re very wealthy, your estate is already exempt.) According to one estimate, Vice President Cheney’s estate would save $13 million or more if he died in 2010.

Even before the federal government began taxing estates in 1917, it was considered one of the fairest ways to raise revenue in a democracy.

That’s because justice calls for taxes to take into account one’s ability to pay. The super-rich, whose ability to pay is unquestionable, are already receiving enormous income tax cuts. Those of modest means are getting small cuts but paying much more in government fees and local taxes at the same time their cost of living (food, shelter, transportation) is increasing.

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt advocated an estate tax in 1907, to the horror of fellow Republicans.

Some wealthy Americans are in favor of preserving the estate tax, for the sake of our nation’s health. Bill Gates Senior (father of the richest man on earth) says: “People who have the good fortune, the skill, the luck to become wealthy in our country simply have a debt … to the source of their opportunity. …  That is why so many of us feel that this is not only an appropriate tax, it strikes me as about the fairest of all.”

Billionaire Warren Buffett said last month: “It’s a very equitable tax…It’s in keeping with the idea of equality of opportunity in this country, not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged.”

Among the curious provisions in the 2001 legislation is a stipulation that the estate tax will spring back to its original levels in 2011 after being abolished in 2010.

But last month, the Republican-controlled House voted to make permanent huge cuts in the estate tax.  According to one estimate, those cuts would cost our government $279 billion in revenue over the next decade.

So far the Republican-controlled Senate hasn’t gone along, because of vigorous Democratic opposition and a few nervous Republicans. Watch carefully!