Go Ask ALICE
In her blog, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel stumps for ALICE, "The American Legislative Issue Campaign Exchange," which "has the goal of identifying, supporting and assisting 10,000 progressive local elected officials." Notes vanden Heuvel,
It isn't sexy. In fact, it's not even something that most people even notice. But local government in thousands of counties, cities and towns–with more than 490,000 elected officials distributed across them–have primary responsibility for many of the issues most important to progressives: primary and secondary schools and community colleges, land use and planning, work-force development and job-skills training, water allocation, housing, childcare and child welfare, health services, and welfare, among many others.
Yet most people cannot name their city council or county board members. And progressives have not yet supplied these elected officials with message, policies and programs.
She's right–most people have no idea who the hell their local pols are. Curiously, a few years ago it came to light on Chris Matthews' Hardball that vanden Heuvel had a pretty shaky grasp on who her U.S. representative was and what neighborhood she lived in.