How to Turn Your Red State Blue, by Christopher Hays is one of the best articles on progressive political organizing that I have yet read. Particularly with the high-level view:

Currently, a dysfunctional division of labor exists between Democratic politicians and the progressive base, in which the base spends much of its energy attempting to stop Democratic politicians from selling out core progressive principles, while it is left to the politicians to reach out to those in the mushy middle.

Ideally progressives should be giving candidates cover to implement a progressive agenda by doing the reaching out and convincing themselves... If a political party’s job is to win elections by doing what is politically expedient, the activist’s job is to make doing the right thing politically expedient.

There's the very real issue that it's exceedingly difficult for activists to reach out with much vigor if there's no one with a high public profile leading the charge. I would never have done what I did in the past two years, for instance, if a certain Democratic primary candidate hadn't taken the words right out of my mouth. The response to this sort of thing is electric: "Finally! Someone's saying it! Yes!"

Anyway, the whole thing is worth reading. I strongly recommend.