Aoc gets 60 seconds
Dems rising star given only short spot at national convention
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars, was granted just 60 seconds to speak at the national convention Tuesday in a prerecorded spot that drew jokes and rage over its brevity.
Members of the party’s left wing called out the Democratic establishment for snubbing the progressive firebrand in favor of speakers like money-machine Michael Bloomberg and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, during a convention designed to showcase a unified front against President Trump.
“When you look at the entire production of the DNC, you see the Biden-Harris ticket is trying to send a message of ‘We’re going to defeat Trump, but we’re not going to go too far left,’ ” Boston-based Democratic strategist Wilnelia Rivera said.
AOC’s appearance “shows a tepid commitment” to a future leftward direction of the party, Rivera said. But with progressive candidates racking up primary victories nationwide, Rivera said the congresswoman’s short clock is a “shortchanging” by Democrats who think “they need to strike a bipartisan tone to win.”
Ocasio-Cortez first acknowledged her brief moment in the spotlight by tweeting a poem by Benjamin E. Mays that says “Only a tiny little minute, But eternity is in it.”
On Tuesday she clapped back at former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal after he said Republicans should “give her more time at their convention to show voters how crazy Dem ideas are.”
“If I can regularly roast Trump sycophants in 280 characters or less, I can speak to progressive values in 60 secs,” the New York congresswoman replied.
Former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang — who was initially left out of the convention lineup entirely — and The Young Delegates Coalition are among those pushing for more speaking time for Ocasio-Cortez.
The Democratic convention has historically served as a launching pad for the party’s younger stars — Barack Obama’s 2004 keynote address created early buzz for his eventual presidential run — a precedent not lost on the Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters.
But some Democratic analysts say if there’s anyone who can pack a powerful punch in just 60 seconds, it’s AOC.
“People I think interpreted it as a snub and it’s not,” UMass Lowell political science professor John Cluverius said. “There’s not many sitting members of Congress — certainly not many first-term members of Congress — that are addressing the DNC in primetime. The fact that she is doing so is an acknowledgement of where the future of the party is.”