Liberal Time magazine called the surprising victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (shown) over 10-term Democrat Joe Crowley in Tuesday’s primary in New York City “the biggest upset of the 2018 elections so far.” The New York Times described Crowley’s loss as “a shocking primary defeat … the most significant loss for a Democratic incumbent in more than a decade” while the liberal UK Guardian called Ocasio-Cortez’s victory “one of the biggest upsets in recent American political history.”
Crowley had everything going for him: $3 million in campaign funds versus just $300,000 for his upstart challenger; a voting record over his time in the House that earned him a Freedom Index rating of just 21 out of 100; a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, and a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee; a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood; an ardent supporter of ObamaCare; and a harsh critic of President Trump’s call to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
None of this mattered. He looked conservative compared to the credentials loudly and proudly proclaimed by his opponent in the primary: a member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and a track record that proved it. A graduate of Boston University in 2011 (she is just 28) where she majored in economics and international relations, she interned for Senator Ted Kennedy and served as a community organizer for Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign.
{modulepos inner_text_ad}
Her platform was other-worldly: Medicare for all, a federal jobs guarantee, tuition-free public college, and abolition of ICE — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In addition she made clear her contempt for the Second Amendment by promising to push for more gun control, and supporting the ending of the privatization of prisons.
She even interrupted her campaign the weekend before the primary to join protests at an ICE detention center in Texas.
She played to the illegals living in the 14th District:
We have families and communities here from Ecuador and Colombia, Bangladesh, Korea, and I see them every day … many of them are very scared about what’s going on. With my campaign, in terms of immigration, we’re trying to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got your back.’
CNN called the primary early with final counts showing Ocasio-Cortez romping over Crowley by 15 points. The fourth-ranking Democrat in the House and considered the top contender for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s job, Crowley is now on the outside looking in.
It’s too easy to conclude that she will outshine Crowley when her voting record is compiled and analyzed by The John Birch Society. As an activist and a member of the DSA, she is likely to adopt many if not most of the pro-communist group’s agenda: anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, Democratic Socialist, Eco-Socialist, Multi-tendency and Socialist feminization. She will be in good company as the DSA supports restructuring gender and cultural relationships in order to make them more “equitable,” an organization that in the past has supported and endorsed Democrat candidates Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders, as well as Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
According to Doug Schoen, 30 years a pollster and political consultant, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise victory over Crowley “will embolden the loudest voices in the Democratic Party as they promote their exceedingly extreme agenda.” But, added Schoen, “this new strain of intolerance coming from … Democrats [such as Ocasio-Cortez] is not just bad for the Democrat’s chances of taking back Congress next fall — it is bad for the country’s moral health [as well].”
Photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: AP Images
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
