ROBERT'S SATURDAY SOAPBOX

It's time once again for many cities and towns across Florida to elect municipal officers. In many locales, these races are nonpartisan, where candidates do not declare a political party affiliation. And in many cases, the political parties ignore these elections.

But not always.

Municipal officers are the first rung on the ladder for many entering public service as elected officials. Some later, if they do the job which their constitutents consider good enough, become county commissioners and state legislators and congressional representatives. The lessons they learn, and the support they receive, early on will hopefully help them later down the road.

One of my big beefs is that Democrats and progressives have paid little --- if any --- attention to municipal races while the opposition has been, openly or otherwise, supporting their own. This kind of base-building is one of the reasons, IMHO, the other party has made major strides over the past couple of decades.

In Fort Myers, Mayor Jim Humphrey's campaign sent out mailings which included flowing endorsements from fellow Republican elected officials, including a couple of members of the Lee County legislative delegation. And in Sarasota, the county Republican Party sent out a series of postcard mailings on behalf of two candidates for the City Commission. The most recent of those included a photograph of a Iraqi woman leaving a voting booth with the caption "She voted, will you?" The former Democratic chairman there did --- on his own --- a phone blitz on behalf of two of the five Democrats running for the City Commission.

We as Democrats/progressives must not stand to the side and "sit this one out". We must challenge the other party and their right-wing minions whereever they are, whenever they are running. And it shouldn't matter if it's for City Hall, the courthouse, statehouse, or White House. If it's a "nonpartisan" race, we need to learn who our candidates are and support them to the hilt.