A good thing

There's been a decent amount of attention given the Democratic Party of Georgia's recent decision to jump into the Atlanta mayoral race by attempting to cast Mary Norwood as a Republican-in-disguise.

Bernita at Blog For Democracy doesn't like it and added additional thoughts aimed at the mailer itself. I disagreed with her, feeling she was being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian.

Though I took a silly shot at her toward the end - which I concede was silly given Bernita's tireless, good work for Democratic candidates the past couple of years - I stand by my dissent. And it's dissent rooted in my actual belief that I think the DPG getting involved in local races is ultimately a good thing.

For quite some time, I've long believed the party needed to rebuild a depleted bench, and that can be done by electing young progressives to city councils, school boards, etc. Everything doesn't always have to be about winning a governor's race or election for U.S. Senate. I'd like to see some continued fire from the DPG. I'd like to see them, where appropriate, get involved in local races.

Sure, this is a risk. Sure, this could backfire spectacularly.

But, it's about time we started taking some risks.

This is a conservative state run by Republicans and the reality is that more Republicans will probably be elected next year. Quite frankly, there's nothing that can really done to curb that trend in the short-term, which makes it all the more important to have a strategy aimed at promoting progressive politics on a block-by-block basis.

Democrats in Georgia, rightly or wrongly, have a brand problem. You don't change that overnight, but you can start reversing course by focusing on some of those local issues in the communities across Georgia. It's going to be awfully rough at first, but it's something that needs to be done.