Revisiting AOC '28 After DSA Commie Uprising
Top O' the Briefing
Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Poodle Rodeo is held every evening immediately after "Self-Care for Hamstrings" in the Octagon of Irrationality.
Like it or not, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has staying power. Even those of us who count ourselves among her biggest detractors have known all along that she was going to be sticking around in Washington for a long time. AOC was a disruptive force among the House Democrats almost from the moment she was first sworn in back in 2019.
I think most conservatives were hoping that she would remain a burr under the saddle for the Dems, causing an amount of trouble that was greatly disproportionate to her power in the party. She could be a big deal in The Squad, but the adults in the Democratic Party would keep her at arm's length and not let her head get too big.
She didn't get the memo.
Is it time that we stop chuckling when we talk about her potential as the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee? Rick thinks so:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) may be uninformed, poorly educated, and without scruples. But she's the frontrunner in some polls for the Democratic Party's 2028 presidential nomination and is well-positioned to ride the growing wave of radical-left energy now taking over the Democratic Party all the way to the top.
Getting past superficial profiles of her, AOC has many gifts and a jungle savviness about politics that makes her a formidable opponent for any Democrat who's been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate.
Her clownish social media gimmicks aside, this is a woman with a plan. And Republicans who underestimate her do so at the party's peril.
Mark Halperin, a veteran of several presidential campaigns, writes in The Free Press, "AOC boasts three indispensable factors for a successful presidential race: national name recognition, the capacity to raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and insatiable media interest."
First, the grain of salt. A little over a month ago, Halperin was making the case for Bernie Sanders and predicating it on his belief that AOC wouldn't run in 2028, which Aaron covered. I treated that as a goofy thought experiment. He's probably more on target with this.
The "insatiable media interest" is AOC's gargantuan strength if she decides to take the big leap. While the flying monkeys in the mainstream media are incurious about any Dem's faux pas, they're positively charmed by everything that Squeaky gets monumentally wrong. The MSM hacks have an almost sexual lust for a female Democrat to break the presidential glass ceiling, so Ocasio-Cortez will have an even easier time with them than His High Holiness the Lightbringer Barack Obama did in the 2007-2008 primary cycle.
The success of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates in elections and primaries this past year has elevated AOC from mouthy prog chick status to elder stateswoman of the DSA Stalin Youth village. She was a member of the DSA before anyone was mentioning the DSA. Less than two weeks ago, I led off the Briefing examining an attempt to sell AOC as a centrist voice of reason to counter the DSA loons who are newer to the scene. I wrote that, "I'm all for them heading into November trying to sell a narrative that says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is whatever passes for a centrist over there."
Still am.
We've been relentlessly mocking the potential 2028 Dem field for a while now. It really is a lackluster circus that's heavy with white dudes who the Dems don't really want to have to resort to nominating. I wrote this in February:
When looking at the list of the likely potential Democratic nominees, America's Dumbest Bartender stands out with the most diversity cred. She's a good fundraiser, too. Her odds are going to start looking better as we get closer to 2028 and Democrats laugh Kamala Harris off the stage and hit Newsom with an oversized race card.
That was way back when Zohran Mamdani was the only other DSA member of note. They're all the rage in Dem Land now, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is practically royalty in that crowd.
In February, I wrote that she would be a dream candidate for the Republicans to run against, and I still believe that. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is most definitely a formidable politician within the confines of the Democratic Party. Getting elected in a Coastal Media Bubble™ D+19 urban district is a lot different than convincing flyover country that you should have the launch codes, however.
One thing that AOC keeps proving to everyone, though, is that she shouldn't be written off.
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