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A banner for Ocasio-Cortez hangs through the chairs during his Victory Day in the Bronx. (Scott Heins / Getty Images)
In the spring of 2017, before ending the 20-year career of MP Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) And disrupting the most powerful political machine of her city, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez worked behind a bar. She had helped launch Flats Fix, a tacos and artisanal cocktail in Manhattan, while reflecting on what to do next.
"I was taking brunch orders, with AC, and people from progressive political groups were calling me," she said last week in an interview.
She had organized for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) In New York, but he lost the presidential primary. She had gathered at Standing Rock, the site of Amerindian protests against a pipeline crossing their North Dakota lands. She had worked with Bronx Progressives and the Democratic Socialists of America to lobby Crowley's office; it was hailed when the congressman approved the House's "Medicare for All" bill.
In May, encouraged by the activists she worked with, Ocasio-Cortez, 28, challenged Crowley. It was long, but it was at least a way to build a political movement. "Yes [the district] can be more educated, more organized, more invested than a year ago, "Ocasio said WYNC in November 2017, "so this campaign will have been worth 100%."
Ocasio-Cortez now seems to be on the way to Congress, being run in a district that has given 78 percent of its vote to Hillary Clinton and that Republicans are not seriously contesting it. There, she could be the youngest woman elected by one or the other political party. Prior to this year, Crowley had never come close to losing in the 14th Congressional District of New York. The Republican reaction to Ocasio-Cortez's victory was mostly about Crowley's defeat and how his party's establishment had lost to a self-proclaimed socialist.
That was what Ocasio-Cortez had undertaken to do – replace the party establishment, and the Crowley-controlled Queen's Democratic Party machine, with a new establishment and a new electorate. Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, among the progressive groups that had urged him to introduce themselves, ended up endowing his campaign. She was not inclined to support House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for the speech, naming one of the most left-wing members of the House as a better choice.
"I would like to see new leadership, but I do not even know what our options are," she said. "I mean, is Barbara Lee running? Call me when she does!
The Ocasio-Cortez policy is substantially to the left of the majority of the party, and even of Sanders. In her campaign videos and posters, designed by socialist friends from New York, she spoke out in favor of the abolition of ICE, universal health insurance , a federal job guarantee and free tuition. The advertisements also made it clear that she was a different candidate – a young Latina from the Bronx, not a Queens White. The posters, which she said were designed to be "revolutionary", were bilingual and centered her face; Her video of the viral campaign, created by a socialist team called Means of Production, began by saying that "women like me are not supposed to run for office," as if she were preparing for the day in a busy building. .
"The only time we are creating a substantial change is when we reach out to a dissatisfied electorate and inspire and motivate it to vote," Ocasio-Cortez told the left-wing magazine In These Times , in one of the many interviews that she has given. his campaign has seemed to leap in the last few weeks. "That's how Obama won and was re-elected, and that's how Bernie Sanders did so well."
In interviews last week, while Ocasio-Cortez polled Queens voters, she said her campaign had started with local organizers and had taken off when national left-wing media noticed what was happening. She was doing. An early profile in the Intercept, she said, was "a game changer," leading to more interviews and profiles that drove with the boldness of her challenge, then to her politics. . During the last week of the campaign, when she briefly left the state to see conditions in Texas immigration detention centers, she informed Vogue of how the campaign was going to unfold.
"The biggest obstacle that our communities have is cynicism – to say that it's a fait accompli, that cares about it, there's no reason to vote," Ocasio-Cortez said. told volunteers before one of their paintings. "If we can make sure that someone cares about it, it's a huge win for the movement and the causes we're trying to advance."
Why challenge Crowley? She explained: He was a "corporate democrat", who received more money from the PAC companies than local donors – and developers who raised the cost of housing. He had voted to create the Department of Homeland Security. He voted for the war in Iraq. He had voted for PROMESA, the bill that created a hated bankruptcy board to handle Puerto Rico's debt.
"My grandfather died in the storm", Ocasio-Cortez tweeted last month. "Your actions closed schools and starved public services when we needed them the most".
None of this had stopped Crowley in the past, but Ocasio-Cortez was convinced that it was possible – if she met voters who were angry about it. His campaign began with telephone banks that targeted thousands of unaffiliated voters, informing them that they had to register as Democrats six months before the elections if they wanted to vote in the primary polls. . He bought the Democratic voters list, but the Ocasio-Cortez team found that the embedded technology was too clumsy, so they built their own application and gave it to the volunteers.
Ocasio-Cortez celebrates with supporters at his Victory Day. (Scott Heins / Getty Images)
The best weapon of the campaign was Ocasio-Cortez herself, who has proved to be a natural candidate with a fascinating history. She was the first to admit that she had rebounded, from the office of Senator Ted Kennedy to the Hispanic National Institute, through the political organization and the service industry. She had to; his family was hit hard during the 2008 financial crisis.
Crowley did not take the challenge lightly, spending $ 1.5 million, more than five times more than his opponent. In his own campaign message, Crowley calls himself "Joe of Queens", and pointed out how his influence in Washington makes him an ideal opponent of Donald Trump.
In his only televised debate with Ocasio-Cortez, Crowley briefly went on the offensive, telling viewers that his opponent had already said that New York's gun laws did not need to be discussed. to be applied in other states. The attack was true – Ocasio-Cortez had said in a Reddit forum – but she laughed, called it "trolling on the Internet", and it went on.
Ocasio-Cortez simply surpassed Crowley, whom many congressional journalists saw as a potential Speaker of the House, through the media. One of his biggest hits came one week before the primary, when a Bronx newspaper held a candidate forum and Crowley could not participate. Ocasio-Cortez showed up early, shaking hands even though the crowd was thin.
Crowley had sent Annabel Palma, a former city councilor, to take her place, although she had sometimes confessed to not knowing Crowley's positions on the issues before Congress. (She was heckled after saying, correctly, that Crowley supported the move of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The day this embassy was moved, Ocasio-Cortez condemned the "massacre" of Palestinians who protested, and tweeted that "Democrats can no longer keep quiet about it".)
The first time candidate clearly had the best of the long-time city councilor. The focus of Ocasio-Cortez remained on Crowley. At the beginning of the debate, before she was told not to stand up during the answers, she paced the stage and said that her campaign was from, by and for the Bronx.
"We have touched the hearts and minds of all families here, we are fighting for a movement with no empathy for economic, social and racial justice in the United States," Ocasio-Cortez said.
She turned and faced Palma. "With all due respect," she says, "I'm the only congressional candidate in this room."
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