AOC & Knocking Down the House

This weekend, I caught the Netflix documentary Knocking Down the House, the story of four women Democratic candidates running for the U.S. Congress and Senate in 2018. All of these women were first time candidates and outside of the establishment. Freshman Congresswoman Alexandra Osacio-Cortez was featured. If you have time to kill (and who doesn't. It's COVID quarantine time!), I recommended taking a peek.

I had never followed AOC before and I didn't know much about her before I saw the show. I knew she was super progressive and from New York, but that was about it.

Wow. She is a dynamo. Regardless of party, that woman has some amazingly strong campaigning chops. She is politically gifted. She knows how to inspire and rally people to her cause. From the right, a comparable person from might be Sarah Palin: someone who came out of nowhere (aka Alaska), made a big splash on the national scene and scared the hell out of those who didn't agree with her. AOC is the same. Her talent put a bullseye on her back, a sharp target for the right.

Having run for a local office in a big city, I have attended dozens of candidates where I not only had to campaign myself, I saw at least a hundred grassroots candidates. I've attended political fundraisers for incumbents.

I have never seen anyone fresh out of the gate with her skills. I've seen lots of people in their twenties run for office--City Council, the State Legislature--to get the experience. These "kids" are in a sense buying a lottery ticket: they don't know if they can win unless they try, right? AOC would mop the floor with these other newbies. She has incredible poise and is so articulate for the first time candidate. Granted, AOC is cute and spunky and had some very experienced campaign professionals working for her. But when you are on a stage and the moderator is firing questions, you are on the stage alone. Your campaign manager can smile adoringly at you from the back row in the arena, but that is all the help they can give. They can't put words in your mouth, or telepath you a witty and sharp answer. That had to come from inside.

The show is a little misleading -- the filmmakers show her working as a waitress (which wasn't untrue) but they omitted the shinier parts of her resume, like her bachelor's degree from Boston University and her experience as a campaign organizer for Bernie Sanders in 2016. She was a first time candidate, but as my dad would say, she didn't fall off the turnip truck.

Nevertheless, I was impressed. 

Plus her boyfriend is so adorable. He's a big lug who is both smitten and supportive.