Naturally Blue PAC Gets National Recognition

Naturally Blue, a progressive PAC formed by a group of Arkansas twenty-somethings, has made national news.

This new PAC is featured In today”s New York Times and the first paragraph of the article sums up what the Naturally Blue PAC is attempting to accomplish:

The last Democratic stronghold in the South is in the care of a new set of guardians: graduate students, mostly. At a party last month, a group in their 20s, many of them enrolled in the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, unveiled a new state and federal PAC. Called Naturally Blue, its aim is to maintain the tenuous majority of Democrats in the Arkansas legislature to promote an agenda of economic populism and to take the fight to the rest of Dixie.

Back in February, I interviewed Naturally Blue”s President Nate Looney a few days before their official launch.

Looney said Naturally Blue had 4 overall goals:
1) Recruit progressive candidates to run
2) Provide resources to run successful campaigns
3) Serve as a support mechanism for campaigns and governing
4) Position Naturally Blue as a progressive think tank for the South

They are still a new PAC, so it will be a little bit of time before they accomplish all of their goals, but they are headed in the right direction.

Naturally Blue is even going after voters in usually Republican Northwest Arkansas.  From the article:

Their first move is to casino online tackle booming northwest Arkansas, a longtime Republican bastion that is home to Walmart and Tyson Foods. They are recruiting candidates and urging them to stand their ground on economic and social justice issues like the health care overhaul. (They are less eager to engage on “wedge issues” like abortion.) The PAC’s promotional literature encourages donations from across the country, noting that “for the cost of one 30-second spot in New York, we can run seven” in Arkansas, which they see as the best staging ground for taking back the South.

It”s exciting to see a group of young progressives receive recognition for their vision and desire for change.  We”ll keep an eye on the PAC to see if they have an impact on the 2012 campaigns and elections.