2024 is certainly shaping up to be an interesting year; in the latest, it seems that Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has a primary challenger, and he is calling her out for inaction.
The election of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to Congress in 2018 created massive political upheaval after she unseated veteran Congressman Joe Crowley, who had at one point been tapped to replace Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader of the House.
This summer, a former Wall Street banker is looking to do to Ocasio-Cortez, what Ocasio-Cortez did to Crowley,
Marty Dolan, 66, who spent 30 years working for Jefferies Financial Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and other financial firms, is challenging Ocasio-Cortez for her 14th Congressional District seat in New York, a position she has safely held for the last six years, representing a district Dolan says she has done little to help improve.
Should he be successful, it would be an earth-shattering blow to the Democratic Socialists of America, who have a large foothold in the city, including in the Bronx and northern Queens, which the District 14 seat covers.
AOC, as a “Squad” member, is in good standing with the Democratic Socialists (yes, I realize that’s a contradiction in terms) of America. But while she’s focused on continuing to allow unchecked, unlimited illegal immigration and crying over empty parking lots, she hasn’t done a lot for New York’s 14th Congressional District, except for quashing a proposed Amazon warehouse that would have brought 25,000 jobs to the district.
That alone would seem to give Dolan plenty to work with.
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But the former banker has more arrows in his quiver.
But Dolan says Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow socialists have gone too far, blasting their approach to the economy, crime and the illegal migrant crisis.
“We are all for the ‘progress’ implied by the word progressive, however, within the progressive movement, there are radicals whose influence on the Democratic Party is overweight,” Dolan wrote on his campaign website.
“The impact in NYC is obvious: bail reform a disaster, the National Guard in the subway, toothpaste locked up in drugstores but criminals running free, scarce resources directed to (non-sanctuary) immigrants coming from all over the world.”
It would be a good idea for someone in Dolan’s campaign to caution him that most of the points he makes about NYC are municipal matters, about which a Congressman can have little effect. But a Congressman does wield a vote on such matters as the economy and illegal immigration, which are bound to be key issues in this fall’s campaign.
Even so, Dolan has a steep hill to climb. It’s never easy to knock out an incumbent in a primary. It would be tempting, on this matter, for Dolan to say to AOC, “How hard could it be? You did it.” But it’s important to note that Ocasio-Cortez took out a rather complacent incumbent who didn’t appear to take her candidacy seriously, while she burned a lot of shoe leather in the district doing retail-level politics; that’s how Joe Crowley lost his seat to a bartender who, to be perfectly candid, is a few sheep short of a flock.
AOC isn’t likely to be that complacent, and she has a huge campaign war chest advantage.
While it’s worthwhile to wish Marty Dolan all the best, and while it would be great to see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out looking for another Bronx bartending gig, this is, at best, a long shot.
