You don't make yourself a name by properly managing garbage trucks and street sweeping. It's not just the US either, Australian local councils went headlong into culture wars long ago.
Counterpoint, I read this interesting article recently contrasting two progressive mayors in the USA, Brandon Johnson (~6% approval rating) and Michelle Wu (66% approval rating)
Is it really? Local approval rating is in no correlation with national name recognition. You don't get your name in the national news by just fixing potholes. I guess you have to do it in order to not get voted out, and some ideological mayors fail to do it.
