There’s a new face in Washington, D.C. to watch
If you are a follower of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), you might be interested to know there is a new member of the House of Representatives who has been labeled even more progressive than he. The name the news media is going to focus on in the next two years is a Democrat from New York’s 14th Congressional District. If you find any of the following article either interesting or somewhat frightening, please check her out on the internet. Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I can guarantee you will hear it frequently in the next two years.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is 29 years old and as such is said to be the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress in our history. She was recently on a PBS special which followed her swearing in and her first day as a new congresswoman. She is attractive and no mention was made of her marital status. She has a college degree from Boston University class of 2011. Boston University is well known today as a rather liberal institution originally affiliated with the Methodist Church.
No mention of her degree field was found in the reports I read, so apparently she is not a lawyer. To gain her seat in Congress, she upset an incumbent Democrat with more than 10 years in Congress; and she did it with a convincing 57.13 percent of the vote in the primary. The 14th District of New York contains areas of Queens and the Bronx in New York City. According to Politico, the registered Democrats outnumber Republicans at a ratio of almost six to one. Winning the primary in her district is much like being a Republican in Benton County. There isn’t much chance of losing in the general election. She won against a supposed Republican candidate in November with 78 percent of less than 150,000 votes.
Her Democratic opponent in the primary was Representative Joe Crowley, a classic New York political shoo-in. A hand-selected candidate with a history of successful fundraising and the number four ranking Democrat in the House, he was expected to be a potential successor to Nancy Pelosi as Democratic Speaker. Three weeks before the primary, his poll showed him 36 points ahead of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. His loss stunned all political pundits. As an after thought, he was on the ballot under another party label in the general election and received only 7 percent of the vote.
The amazing thing about her stunning the Democratic Party in the primary was her method of campaigning. Her incumbent opponent was reported to have outspent her 15 to 1. As we all know from election results here, the incumbent usually has “closet” party support even if it is not acknowledged. Her approach may sound a new theme, “take money, big money, out of the election process and campaign hard and personally.” I can certainly support that if we can actually neutralize the special interest money by educating the voters. She relied on Twitter, other media outlets and face-to-face selling of her ideas.
It is important to recognize the 14th Congressional District in New York is not made up of a demographical area like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 12th California District in San Francisco. Pelosi’s home district is 44 percent white with a median income of over $111,700. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s New York district is 18.4 percent white and 49.8 percent Hispanic with a median income of slightly over $58,300. The unemployment rate is currently over 9 percent with a population at the recent count of over 700,000 persons. That difference should make for some very interesting behind the scenes, cloak room confrontations with the Washington establishment as the year progresses.
To better understand the potential of this upset win, it is important to know that her family’s heritage apparently is Puerto Rican. The individual she ran against was not only a 10-year plus incumbent and was from a well-known, politically active white family, but he was also listed as chairman of the Democratic Caucus and should be considered a “career politician.” She is a member of Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in American with a reported 55,000 members. They, and she, promote medicare for everyone. They also promote socialist ideas by recommending that socialists become educators / teachers.
How long she can survive in Washington with her “in your face” stance on winning elections without the party’s backing, remains to be seen. Her views on health care and other social issues may face a reality test pretty quickly, but like Bernie Sanders, it is entertaining to have someone new speaking out on television and maybe appearing in the newspapers. Perhaps she will take some of the press’ attention away from President Trump. Almost anything could help in that area.