Right, and I don't mention past elections (like those less than a year ago) to dwell on our failures or naysay future opportunities. And I really do appreciate the piece and the analysis. But, from on-the-ground experience, I don't think the infrastructure necessary for a statewide effort is what Georgia has to work with. I think they have the kernels of an infrastructure. And a lot of that is to be expected in a state where the Democratic establishment has been in steady decline for over a decade.

What worries me about the Atlanta-centrism of the groups mentioned is not just that they will focus on preaching to the choir, but that they will in fact be the base upon which our hopes for Georgia are built--meaning these groups will be the focus of our efforts, rather than a bost to our efforts. I think they're positive harbinger of future progressive development, and they're great for training and promoting progressive leadership in Georgia, but I don't know that there's a lot of "there" there, in terms of using them as the basis for any statewide movement. There's just not the strength in terms of manpower or distributive networks that we need to be looking for, nor is there the experience and networking in North and South Georiga that we would need.

My theory, for what it's worth:
Georiga needs a populist leader to establish a self-sustaining statewide organization capable of providing that infrastructure, or it needs a new organizational paradigm for progressives. The real problem I forsee is that most Progressive populists in Georgia that have any stature are also in the Atlanta area. The downside of continually focusing our electoral strategy on turnout is that we've neglected to train new leaders for progressives outside the Metro area.

It's easy to underestimate what a statewide effort in Georgia would entail, but since we're talking about the largest state east of the Mississippi River, with a population of 8.8 million, we have to consider the demographic break as well as geographic distance. There are cities at all corners of the state that will trend Democratic (Valdosta, Columbus, Rome, Macon, Albany, Savannah, Augusta, Athens, Atlanta of course) that have to be reached. Most of the city of Atlanta and Decatur are left-leaning. But almost every suburb of Atlanta is conservative. Very conservative. Like "Home of Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr" conservative. In rural areas, you've got hundreds of cities and towns that could support the movement if the movement could get to them. Places like Fitzgerald, Tifton, Douglas and Cartersville could probably show real gains, but getting resources to these places, including people that know how ot organize effectively, is damn near impossible without a few hundred thousand dollars to play around with.

If we want a statewide infrastructure in Georgia, we need a Jimmy Carter to create a spontaneous network, or else we need a hell of a lot of outside resources, or else we need Atlanta-area progressives to invest directly in rural areas (and that, frankly, ain't gonna happen, since the groups that can effectively raise money will tend to want to spend it in Atlanta, and the ones that want to spend it in the rural areas are unable to compete for cash--hell, even the Urban Rural Summit does its press conferences in Woodruff Park! Atlanta is just more accessible than the rest of the state--a lesson Dr. King learned the hard way in Albany.)