A sad note. John Alvis, 35, was found dead in his apartment in Baku, Azerbaijan, a victim of a stabbing.

John was a former student of mine, a gentle, optimistic guy whose passion for politics was great, but not as great as his passion for democracy.

John was one of hundreds of Americans - Republicans and Democrats - who live in and among the indigenous populations trying to export our most precious product; democracy.

These people - lots of them young, but not all - live, under difficult conditions, in places like Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia, and Indonesia, and Cambodia, and Eastern Europe and South and Central America and Africa trying to bring the lessons of freedom and democracy.

They don't get to fly around on chartered aircraft. They don't get to live in excellent hotels.

They don't get to organize events with lots of TV cameras and piped-in music.

For many of these folks a really, really good week is getting a box of paper delivered so they can make copies. John's apartment was, literally, upstairs from his office.

As we watch the fight for the Presidency unfolding on our TV screens, on our radios, and on our desktops, we know with absolute certainty that we will transfer power peacefully because the roots of our democracy run so deep here.

John Alvis and his hundreds of colleagues spend every day trying to graft the smallest cuttings of our democracy onto nascent political organizations around the world.

John had just about completed his tour of duty and was preparing to come home when he was killed.

He will come home. He will be buried in his home country, in his home state of Texas, in the soil containing those same roots of democracy he died trying to carry overseas.