Long ago, I knew someone who had run for president while in high school. He registered as a candidate after successfully arguing that, while you have to be at least 35 years old to be president, there’s no age requirement to run for the office. He campaigned a little, made the news, and (IIRC) got his home state to include his name on the ballots.
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The contrast between AOC and her opponent could not have been more clear. Michelle Cabruso-Cabrera is a former quasi-libertarian talking head on CNBC who regularly made me want to throw things at the screen when she would editorialize some nonsense about reducing regulations on wall street or excessive taxes on the rich. Halfway through her tenure at CNBC, she got a thorough facelift and total makeover to glam herself up. Still has the same small, pinched, black heart though.
Glad she got trounced.
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She has mastered so many forms of communication. She can get her point across in a sound bite or ask the kind of hard hitting questions in committee that translate well to social media without compromising the depth or completeness of her position and understanding of an issue.
There are many intelligent people who can’t speak to complicated issues in a relatable sense in less than a half hour. The Republicans do very well with snippits and repeated refrains and slogans while many further left act as though communicating succinctly on complex issues simply isn’t possible.
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If McGrath gets McConnell kicked out of office I’ll still take that as a big fat win.
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Now I feel old.
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Remember…“crazy” is misogynist-speak for “doing things men don’t like”.
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She must have one of those fire-proof brains.
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I take it this friend has never been to the South Bronx or Queens? LaGuardia doesn’t count.
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He’s from Texas and has lived in RI for a long time now. To @knoxblox 's point…I don’t think he is a full on misogynist; but he definitely has some old school perspectives on some things.
Ultimately I know full well he’s just not informed on things beyond talking points from some sources on politics. AOC is rebellious in many ways…I think a lot of 50-somethings are just not tuned into how much the rest of us actually want a revolution at this stage.
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AOC for president. I like the sound of that. It would be nice to have a president with a personal stake in the future, rather than some ancient brain-damaged schmuck who can barely waddle down a 3-degree ramp.
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I’m 58, and the only thing that keeps me from screaming for the guillotines is that the billionaires who deserve them would probably be able to turn the angry mobs back on techies like me.
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So far you’re the only person w/ an opinion on Michelle Caruso-Cabrera who admits to knowing anything about her other than her name. She works for a financial news network, so she should what instead, scream “regulate Wall Street into non-existence”… (see below)? Her physical appearance is irrelevant, unless you’re declaring that it directly correlates to her character. What you should be calling out is that she was a registered Republican until just a few years ago, and wrote a 2010 book calling for the elimination of Social Security and MediCare…
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It’s not unheard of, even on CNBC, for talking heads to be other than screaming supply side capitalists and a bit more balanced than MC-C. There are some actual Democrats and reality based commentators on the network. Then there’s Lou Dobbs and Stuart Varney and Rick Santelli and Joe Kernan at the far right end of the spectrum.
I’m sorry to have offended you with a comment on her appearance. It was clear that she was doing it to try to raise her profile and “star power”, and ultimately she decided to run for public office. I would have made the same comment if Jim Cramer decided to alter his appearance with a full face lift to make his appeal more TV friendly. They both remain dicks, whatever they look like.
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It’s always nice when someone not only passively throws shade at all the commenters in a thread while simultaneously condescending to one specific person about how that person “should be” commenting… don’t you just love it when that happens?
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That’s sort of the thing here. Bowman and AOC’s districts are areas that used to be mostly really wealthy and white. I mean probably gonna be Bowman’s district is partially in Westchester. Which is the straight up suburbs.
Crowley and Engel were vestiges of an older make-up of these areas, who hung on so long because of fundraising influence and low turnout in the ever larger Brown areas.
The local and state offices in these areas turned over in the 90’s an 00’s. I don’t want to down play anyone’s accomplishment. But to a certain extent all this was waiting on was some one from those communities and/or who could legitimately excite them.
You gotta be pretty clueless about modern NY to think that would reverse itself.
But these districts do tend to have enough wealthy, white land mass still in them to send your dad’s favorite stock broker for a primary challenge. And make them seem somewhat plausible from the outside.
Bartender with an Economics degree from one of the best economics programs in the country.
I know that wasn’t neccisarily your intent.
But it bears repeating that like a lot of people in their 30’s (many of them former bartenders), she’s just finally working in a field she trained for.
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AOC is an extremely smart and capable woman, and I foresee her having a really impressive career in politics. But I don’t think she’ll be running for President in '24; that’s too early, even if she technically qualifies then. I think she’s in politics for the long run, and that means building up her legislative and executive experience before going for the big event.
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Yeah, I said “bartending” because that’s how the crotchety old white dudes in the GOP see her.
I’m aware of her economics degree—I actually have a friend who went to BU with her! I’m a year older than AOC, I’m in that same situation that you mention, and I have lots of friends with advanced degrees who bartend.
It’s also worth noting that, when in high school, AOC got 2nd place at the prestigious International Science and Engineering Fair (International Science and Engineering Fair - Wikipedia), for which she got an asteroid named after her. She’s just downright brilliant!
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It really is revealing of the GOP’s utter contempt for the fabled “American dream” when they latch onto a singular aspect of a person’s more humble beginnings (bartender, community organizer) to denigrate them for ever deigning to try and ascend to the lofty heights at which they themselves started.
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Yeah i just try to mention it every time bartender comes up.
I spent too much time bartending to let that particular “millennials are awful” linger like a wet fart.
I find it particularly galling because rather than acknowledging that a massive proportion of an entire generation was pressed out of the labor market. Eventually landing in an exploitive service industry for over a decade. Or doing anything about that.
It blames those people for it, and dismisses that experience.
Of course AOC was a bartender. We were all fucking bartenders if we were working at all.
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Fun fact: when I lived in the Caribbean I couldn’t get a job doing anything but tending bar, even though I have a Bachelor’s degree.
AOC is genuinely a personification of what “the American Dream” was supposed to be (except for the fact that she’s Latina and a woman.)
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