Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused establishment Democrats of treating her “like shit” as progressive activists urged her to run for president in 2028.
In a 100-minute long video posted on Instagram, the 37-year-old congresswoman from New York said that the party had a “remarkable opportunity” to pass left-wing policies after the midterm elections. She also accused the party’s leadership of starving funds from left-wing candidates during the campaign.
“There’s this huge conversation about candidates that were under invested in,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She cited Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who came within 240,000 votes of flipping Florida from red to blue, but ultimately lost to the Republican candidate Ashley Moody.
“If Angie Nixon had just had a little bit of that support, that outcome could have changed. But that money has to come from somewhere and it comes from these people,” Ocasio-Cortez said in reference to the party’s Senate leadership.
Reflecting on the period after she was first elected to Congress in 2018 at the age of 29, Ocasio-Cortez accused senior Democrats of being “horrifically cruel” to her. “I mean I was treated like shit,” she said. “Everybody took a swing at me.”
The Bronx congresswoman is seen as the likeliest progressive candidate to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
I don’t like the fact that she is stating “if we had more money we would’ve won”. Fuck money in politics. Most of those voting don’t have much money so it should not be a factor, yet it is the be all and end all.
She’s just statingt the situation as it is. Getting money out of politics would help non establishment candidates, so I don’t think she’s against that?
Shit costs money. Campaign offices cost money. Staff cost money. Advertisements cost money. Transportation and venues for rallies cost money.
You cannot run for any office without spending money. Nixon was getting drowned out by Republican smears, with no bullhorn big enough to respond. If she had the $140M war chest that Talarico was packing, she’d have done better.
You don’t need to have the most money to run a campaign. Just ask Abdul El-Sayed. But you do need a significant amount. Even in Michigan, he spent $2M to win his primary and another $50M for the general election.
Angie Nixon was in a bigger state with higher costs, spending only $11M through the general, compared to $27M spent by Moody. This was after she’d won her primary for under $1M against a Democrat opponent with $16M.
Democrats spent more money to beat Nixon than they spent to beat Nixon’s Republican opponent.
Wha…this feels like such a strongly principled stance that is formed from a variety of (mis)conceptions. I’ve never before heard anyone evince a “get money out of politics” opinion that meant “politicians should have no money at all” instead of “stop rich people from bribing/‘lobbying’ politicians and buying political power.”
In this situation, that money is used/expected to be used for advertising and maybe paying volunteers to walk around and spread her political message. The fact that her constiuents might be poor doesn’t make advertising free. What I’m reading here makes it sound like you think “she needed more money” = “her net worth wasn’t high enough for her to buy the position”.
They don’t know exactly why she didn’t swing the votes they needed but, rather than assume that Angie Nixon’s message had reached saturation (and everyone who might would have voted was fully aware of her platform), they are pointing at the obvious deficiency in her campaign: [advertising] support from her own political party.
To stop money in politics, first you need to get elected under the current rules. Current rules allow money, and statistics show it helps. A lot!
Once in power, you can cap money spending on campaigns.
That’s the reality right now. Look at the unprecedentedly awful situation it took to overcome that. We won’t be able to do that every election.
Sure you don’t like it, but it’s true. The reality is political campgains need money to be successful.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
It’s unfortunately true though. You have to advertise yourself and at some point it costs money. We have to accept that fact until enough progressives are in government to change the laws to place caps on spending, require discounts, matching funds, etc to level the playing field.