On the contrary, I had never met a congressional candidate I could actually relate to. I’d be lying if I said I knew for certain at the time that Ocasio-Cortez would pull off the most consequential political upset in years, or assume the overlapping roles of activist, legislator, and global celebrity upon entering office. “So he’s literally taking his local playbook and trying to apply it on a national level by purely purchasing his influence through fundraising. “Then all of a sudden, he became chairman of the Queens Democratic Party,” she continued. He was kind of like a shadowy figure he never came out in support of anything bold.” If you look at his career as an assemblyman, people were like, ‘Who is this guy?’ He really had no legislative triumphs as an assemblyman. “And that’s been out of his playbook this entire time. “Americans, they hear the name Joe Crowley and they say, ‘Who?’” she replied. So I asked if Ocasio-Cortez ever came across voters who would continue supporting him because of his national clout, specifically his chances of taking the speakership. In my experience, Ocasio-Cortez was already more knowledgeable than many sitting members of Congress.Īt the time, Crowley was maneuvering to become the next speaker of the House and fundraising for Democratic candidates and the party’s campaign arm to win back the chamber. “It’s very true and it has very, very real consequences - Hi mama, qué pasa, qué pasa, you OK?” I was struck by her deep understanding of different policy issues. When the baby cried, she stopped herself mid-sentence. From time to time, Ocasio-Cortez interrupted herself to coo at a baby staring at us from the next booth. We talked about the role Wall Street played in Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Bernie Sanders’s tweet about Cardi B. In my experience, Ocasio-Cortez was already more knowledgeable than many sitting members of Congress. Joe Crowley’s inner circle while hammering local residents and everything in between. We immediately jumped into her working-class origin story her policy platform the depredations of the Queen’s machine, which enriched Rep. At 11 a.m., the diner was bustling and the background chatter was loud enough to be interesting but not distracting. That day in Queens, she ordered scrambled eggs, scrambled well whole wheat toast and hash browns, and I copied her order. I was there to talk to her for The Intercept’s initial profile on the race, “ A Primary Against the Machine: A Bronx Activist Looks to Dethrone Joseph Crowley, the King of Queens.” A few days after the story ran, Ocasio-Cortez posted her first campaign video online - a year ago today - and it went instantly viral. She wasn’t the target of death threats and conservative hate-thirst, and up until two months before I met her, she was still going by “Sandy” and working at a Union Square bar. Most Americans hadn’t spent much time thinking about the idea of a Green New Deal, a 70 percent marginal tax rate, or an obscure congressional budget rule known as pay-go. This was before anybody outside of her immediate community in New York City knew her name. She had just qualified to be on the ballot in her race against one of the most powerful Democrats in the country. Photo: Andres Kudacki for The InterceptĪ little more than a year ago, I was sitting across from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Queens diner for an interview. Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez canvasses through the Bronx, New York, on April 21, 2018.
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