Bill de Blasio in Politico.com

On Principles & Values: A progressive who wants to change things

No, no. He's up to something bigger, he says. Obviously. "There's a lot of people in the political media and the political class who can only think through the prism of elections and only the very next elections, rather than understanding that social change is made in a variety of fashions. It's the electoral process. It's what happens at the local level as well as the national level. It is through issue-organizing," de Blasio argued, describing his trip as the natural outgrowth of being "a progressive who wants to change things" - and therefore "needs to work with people who are trying to create that change all over the country."

On Principles & Values: We lost our identity in trap of triangulation & moderation

"Part of why we're in the mess we're in is because we fell into a trap of triangulation and moderation, lost a lot of our identity and became unappealing to the very people who had been our support base," he said in the interview.

The problem for de Blasio is that many progressives, Democrats and other mayors say they also don't want HIM in this role--which adds up to a sort of national version of the public advocate job he held for four years in New York before becoming mayor. They're already fed up with his pledge to make Iowa the first of many stops traveling the country to talk about progressive politics and progressive candidates.