Alexandria the grate
Democrat upstart in feud with already-beaten foe
So much for unity.
After Alexandria OcasioCortez's surprising defeat of Rep. Joseph Crowley in last month's Democratic primary, the longtime Queens congressman vowed to back her, even breaking out a guitar and dedicating the Bruce Springsteen song “Born to Run” to the first-time candidate.
But the goodwill appears to be over as the two launched into a Twitter battle over the fact that Crowley (D-Queens) has refused to give up the minor Working Families Party line despite being asked.
Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter Thursday to say that Crowley “stated on live TV that he would absolutely support my candidacy. Instead, he's stood me up for all 3 scheduled concession calls. Now, he's mounting a 3rd party challenge against me and the Democratic Party — and against the will of @NYWFP.”
In a second tweet, OcasioCortez wrote: “So much for ‘Born to Run.' If you want to see me in Congress, we need your help now more than ever. We cannot underestimate the power of dark money. Support us now.”
Crowley responded on his personal Twitter account: “Alexandria, the race is over and Democrats need to come together. I've made my support for you clear and the fact that I'm not running.”
He blamed Ocasio-Cortez's team for not following through on the scheduled phone calls between the two.
“I'd like to connect but I'm not willing to air grievances on Twitter,” Crowley wrote.
He suggested in another tweet that getting off the Working Families Party line would be akin to electoral fraud.
By law, the only way a candidate can get off a line is to move out of New York, die, be convicted of a crime or accept a nomination for another office.
“I don't plan on moving out of New York, have a clean record, hope God's will is that I don't die, and won't commit what I honestly believe to be election fraud” by accepting a nomination for another office in a place he doesn't live, Crowley tweeted.
Ocasio-Cortez downplayed the drama later Thursday at an event in lower Manhattan.
“It's not a big deal,” she said. “We'll work through it, and it ain't no thing.”
Working Families Party state Director Bill Lipton ripped Crowley for refusing to get off the line. The party backed the incumbent but immediately threw its support behind Ocasio-Cortez after her victory.
“WFP is giving all we have to electing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive insurgents all across the nation,” Lipton said. “The only remaining way for Crowley to do the right thing is to switch his residency to Virginia, where his family resides and his children already go to school. It would fix the problem he created in an instant."
He also suggested that the Queens County Democratic party that Crowley heads “practically wrote the book on election law so it's hard to imagine they don't know that there are standard procedures to remove a candidate from the ballot that have been approved by the New York State Court of Appeals."
Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-yearold self-described democratic socialist, stunned the political establishment with her 15point victory over Crowley, who was considered a potential House speaker.