The Note this morning gets it right: “And congratulations to the young operatives on both sides, who worked hard and played by the rules to help someone they believe in get elected to the highest office in the land.

Like Linda Spidalieri, the 30-something absolute rock star from an immigrant Democrat family who has worked all day at her ‘real’ job and then spent her nights and weekends volunteering 40+ hours per week for President Bush in Ohio. One night this week she stayed until 4:00 am doing data entry to help the campaign keep up.

And like the already-legendary Chris Bannister, a 21-year old-college student, a grizzled veteran of Iowa field who stayed up every night the last few months of the campaign compiling the field reports for John Kerry’s Ohio team. In the meantime, his parents hope he goes back and finishes DePaul — and so does his college girlfriend.”

Add to this list my brother, Quentin Palfrey, who took a leave from the august law firm of Cravath, Swaine and Moore a few months ago so that he could be in New Hampshire, organizing 460 lawyers dedicated exclusively to voter protection today.  (There may well be no “harder work” anywhere in America today than organizing 460 lawyers to do anything together on Election Day!)