NY-14: Goliath falls to OCASIO!

[Jeppe]

I think AOC has several factors working in her favour, although still faces an uphill climb.

- The district is split between Queens and Bronx, Crowley’s the boss of Queens, AOC’s Bronx born and raised. The battle lines get drawn easily here.
- The district is almost majority Hispanic, she’ll still face an uphill climb against an incumbent among this group regardless of her own race, but she’ll have an easier time persuading Hispanics to vote for her compared to an Alexandra Smith-Thompson.
- A lot of the white population in the district is basically hipsters (Astoria is the only sizeable community in the district with a large white population), and they’re more persuadable than old-school Catholic Irish or Italian ethnic whites.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

Also:

They describe Arlington as a "leafy Washington suburb" where his three kids attend the "community's nationally renowned schools".

LMAO. I know his daughter, though I won't say her name. But I never connected the dots before...

Do you like like her or just regular like

She's a grade above me and I've talked to her twice.

Never got the impression she was the daughter of a congressman. I also know Dick Lugar's grandson, was a camp counselor for Kellyanne Conway's son and Ben Jealous' son. And Roy Blunt's son, who is a total jackass. F**k Charlie Blunt.

charlie blunt is 13? kind of weird given then matt blunt has already been governor. imagine your brother being a former governor

#1. They're step brothers, Roy Blunt remarried
#2. Charlie is adopted from Russia. Which probably explains why his behavior was so messed up. Some adopted kids are fine, but the feeling of abandonment in others is very damaging mentally in childhood and beyond.

Yes, Andrew, we all know you can read a wikipedia page and do a google search.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

[ON Progressive]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Nobody is going to have their vote switch or anything just because some leadership member (and most people either don't care for or dislike party leadership anyway, as shown by every Speaker ever having hideous approval ratings).

The fact of the matter is, he is a machine hack that doesn't even live in New York state. He lives in Arlington, Virginia and has his kids go to school there.

[KingSweden]

AOC has every right to challenge Crowley and make her case. She’s a resident of the district and is presumably older than 25. Let her, like Ayanna Presley in Massachusetts, make the case for why she’d be better for the constituents of NY-14 than a potential future Speaker of the House. Will she be better at constituent services? Perhaps!

In the same vein, Crowley has been around for 20 years. He owes his constituents reasons to keep him there, other than “muh Machine.”

I’m personally not sure what the great crimes of Joe Crowley and Mike Capuano are, other than being old white guys in districts with changing demographics. They aren’t Dan Lipinski - hell, they’re not even Stephen Lynch. Part of the notion that a woman of color is automatically better seems a little overly focused on identity and ignores that people like Lydia Velazquez exist.

Maybe it’s just that NY Dems are terrible in general

[LimoLiberal]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

Also:

They describe Arlington as a "leafy Washington suburb" where his three kids attend the "community's nationally renowned schools".

LMAO. I know his daughter, though I won't say her name. But I never connected the dots before...

Do you like like her or just regular like

She's a grade above me and I've talked to her twice.

Never got the impression she was the daughter of a congressman. I also know Dick Lugar's grandson, was a camp counselor for Kellyanne Conway's son and Ben Jealous' son. And Roy Blunt's son, who is a total jackass. F**k Charlie Blunt.

charlie blunt is 13? kind of weird given then matt blunt has already been governor. imagine your brother being a former governor

#1. They're step brothers, Roy Blunt remarried
#2. Charlie is adopted from Russia. Which probably explains why his behavior was so messed up. Some adopted kids are fine, but the feeling of abandonment in others is very damaging mentally in childhood and beyond.

Yes, Andrew, we all know you can read a wikipedia page and do a google search.

Are you on discord? I can send you a picture of the ID I got for the camp I worked in that Charlie Blunt attended.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Eric Cantor losing was utterly disastrous for the Republicans in 2014 after all.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Eric Cantor losing was utterly disastrous for the Republicans in 2014 after all.

It was a pretty embarrassing black eye for a week or two, IIRC.  Democrats have a hard enough time staying on message and navigating infighting as it is; there’s no sense making the situation worse.  Although this is all kinda moot since Crowley is probably safe.  

AOC has every right to challenge Crowley and make her case. She’s a resident of the district and is presumably older than 25. Let her, like Ayanna Presley in Massachusetts, make the case for why she’d be better for the constituents of NY-14 than a potential future Speaker of the House. Will she be better at constituent services? Perhaps!

In the same vein, Crowley has been around for 20 years. He owes his constituents reasons to keep him there, other than “muh Machine.”

I’m personally not sure what the great crimes of Joe Crowley and Mike Capuano are, other than being old white guys in districts with changing demographics. They aren’t Dan Lipinski - hell, they’re not even Stephen Lynch. Part of the notion that a woman of color is automatically better seems a little overly focused on identity and ignores that people like Lydia Velazquez exist.

Maybe it’s just that NY Dems are terrible in general

I agree although in fairness, Capuano is one the best Congressmen in the House and we’ve seen with Al Franken a great example of the difference it can make if there are more women in Congress (that’s the only reason Franken was forced to resign, same with Conyers btw; Kihuen would’ve been gone anyway as folks already figured out he was just a much lazier version of John Edwards).  While my sense is that Crowley’s gotten significantly better since 2008 and has probably been one of the “less bad” (b/c none are ideal) NYC machine bosses, there are admittedly legitimate policy reasons to that one can cite for distrusting Crowley although they mainly come from the Bush era.  These days, Crowley is more of a generic D.  

I’d much prefer Tim Ryan who (from what I’ve heard, at least) has gotten much more disciplined and is without question generally even more progressive than his rhetoric suggests when push comes to shove and sticking with Pelosi would likely be better than Crowley (she is amazing at whipping votes and would probably get more credit for this were she a man).  However, Tim Ryan isn’t really an establishment guy and he’s both stylistically and geographically the type of Democrat whom many National Democrats (and the elitist East Coast donor class) are always looking down their noses at so he may simply not be able to win.  

Thus, we want to have at least one remotely acceptable establishment Democrat to block Hoyer if there aren’t the votes to make Pelosi Speaker (highly unlikely, but not impossible).  Crowley is the least bad choice in that regard, I think (Chris Van Hollen would’ve been a perfect post-Pelosi House Democratic Leader *sigh*).  Often politics isn’t about perfect solutions so much as it is about the best/least bad of the available options.  As a result, we might want to keep the Crowley option open  

On the bright side, there should be at least one open leadership post in 2020.  Take with a hefty grain of salt, but I’ve heard from a pretty reliable source that Clyburn is gonna retire in 2020 so his kid can run for SC-6 in hopes that the Presidential candidates will all pander to him by endorsing her over Barkai Sellers in the primary.  I certainly hope so b/c Clyburn’s disgusting racially-charged smear campaign against Conyers has made it clear he’s the one of the worst members of the House Democratic Leadership.  Hoyer’s bad for policy reasons, but Clyburn is just a horrible person.  

At least Rahm Emmanuel is out of the House or else he’d probably be the one being talked about as a future Speaker rather than Crowley *shudder*  But I digress...

TL;DR: Yes, Crowley wasn’t great in the Bush years, but he’s been generic D since 2006-2008 or so.  Are there folks I’d rather see as the post-Pelosi House Democratic Leader?  Sure.  However, Crowley may well be the main non-Hoyer alternative to Pelosi and Hoyer (who, IIRC, actually tried to whip votes for either the Iraq War or the Bush tax cuts on the Democratic side, I forget which one) would be significantly worse.  Say what you will about Crowley, but Hoyer is far more corporatist than him.  That alone should give progressives who want to replace him with a random some dudette pause, even ones who might otherwise be inclined to support a primary challenge here.

On a different note: Not gonna lie, I have no problem with politicians sending their kids to DC/NoVA/MontCo schools.  If you want to be able to be there for your kids and take some semblance of an active parental role, you’d almost have to do so, especially if they’re on the younger side.  

[KingSweden]

@X: I agree wholeheartedly! Hoyer would be awful!

[IndustrialJustice]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

lol

[they don't love you like i love you]

Comparing Crowley to Capuano is absurd.

Capuano is a long time accomplished progressive being challenged by a standard urban machine hack who's impatient about waiting for him to retire and has absolutely nothing to offer beyond him. Crowley meanwhile is the urban machine hack, is not notably outstanding progressive and is being challenged by an insurgent progressive.

Supporting Capuano's challenger based on her race and gender is absolutely ridiculous, as woupd be supporting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because of that, but there are plenty of far more valid reasons to support her.

[Bidenworth2020]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

yeah, just like 2014 everyone hated r's for primarying cantor

[KingSweden]

Comparing Crowley to Capuano is absurd.

Capuano is a long time accomplished progressive being challenged by a standard urban machine hack who's impatient about waiting for him to retire and has absolutely nothing to offer beyond him. Crowley meanwhile is the urban machine hack, is not notably outstanding progressive and is being challenged by an insurgent progressive.

Supporting Capuano's challenger based on her race and gender is absolutely ridiculous, as woupd be supporting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because of that, but there are plenty of far more valid reasons to support her.

Presley seems to be foregrounding her race and gender in her campaign, though. Besides “he’s been around a long time” what reason has she given that she’s superior?

[they don't love you like i love you]

She's running to his left on all the issues.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

lol

In any case, optics aren't my main reason for opposing a primary challenge against Crowley, I think my mega-post offered a pretty comprehensive argument for why progressives are likely better off keeping Crowley around as an anti-Speaker Hoyer fail-safe option should it prove necessary in the next 2-6 years.  If you're gonna primary him, the time to do so is after that threat has been neutralized.

KingSweden also made some good, pertinent points in his post.

[Gass3268]

Should be important to note that almost 2/3rds of the electorate will come from Queens. One of Crowley's other jobs, other than being a Congressman and a member of the Democratic leadership team, is he is the Chairman of the Queens Democratic Committee. Structurally I fail to see how he loses.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

While I'm sure you mean well and I get that you probably aren't doing this on purpose, but the bolded part is a complete BS attack when used against any member of Congress.  And regular voters will know who he is if the media spends a week doing nothing but concern trolling about how DEMS IN DISARRAY AS TOP LEADER LOSES TO NO NAME BERNIEBRO or some such nonsense.  

More importantly though, it'd be much appreciated if – in the interest of intellectual honesty and having a real discussion – you could respond to the points from my mega-post detailing why progressives are far better off with Crowley in office (at least until after 2022 or so) regardless of any Bush-era apostasies instead of just picking the weakest argument and ignoring every other point I made (no offense).

P.S: No self-respecting Democrat should be unironically using the term "latte liberal."

[Progressive]

I think AOC has several factors working in her favour, although still faces an uphill climb.

- The district is split between Queens and Bronx, Crowley’s the boss of Queens, AOC’s Bronx born and raised. The battle lines get drawn easily here.
- The district is almost majority Hispanic, she’ll still face an uphill climb against an incumbent among this group regardless of her own race, but she’ll have an easier time persuading Hispanics to vote for her compared to an Alexandra Smith-Thompson.
- A lot of the white population in the district is basically hipsters (Astoria is the only sizeable community in the district with a large white population), and they’re more persuadable than old-school Catholic Irish or Italian ethnic whites.

She's Puerto Rican and much of the Latino population in the district is Colombian, Ecuadorian, etc. with long-standing relationships with Rep. Crowley. The Bronx portion of the district does have a large Latino community but also has a large Irish, Italian, and Albanian community. Not true to say that Astoria has only sizable white population. Whitestone, Sunnyside, and Woodside have a large Irish Democratic base.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

While I'm sure you mean well and I get that you probably aren't doing this on purpose, but the bolded part is a complete BS attack when used against any member of Congress.  And regular voters will know who he is if the media spends a week doing nothing but concern trolling about how DEMS IN DISARRAY AS TOP LEADER LOSES TO NO NAME BERNIEBRO or some such nonsense.  

More importantly though, it'd be much appreciated if – in the interest of intellectual honesty and having a real discussion – you could respond to the points from my mega-post detailing why progressives are far better off with Crowley in office (at least until after 2022 or so) regardless of any Bush-era apostasies instead of just picking the weakest argument and ignoring every other point I made (no offense).

P.S: No self-respecting Democrat should be unironically using the term "latte liberal."

You very well may be right in the posts you made. I'm just reacting strictly off emotion, which I can do without consequence since I don't live there. LOL.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

While I'm sure you mean well and I get that you probably aren't doing this on purpose, but the bolded part is a complete BS attack when used against any member of Congress.  And regular voters will know who he is if the media spends a week doing nothing but concern trolling about how DEMS IN DISARRAY AS TOP LEADER LOSES TO NO NAME BERNIEBRO or some such nonsense.  

More importantly though, it'd be much appreciated if – in the interest of intellectual honesty and having a real discussion – you could respond to the points from my mega-post detailing why progressives are far better off with Crowley in office (at least until after 2022 or so) regardless of any Bush-era apostasies instead of just picking the weakest argument and ignoring every other point I made (no offense).

P.S: No self-respecting Democrat should be unironically using the term "latte liberal."

You very well may be right in the posts you made. I'm just reacting strictly off emotion, which I can do without consequence since I don't live there. LOL.

Well, at least you're honest about it...although I wouldn't say without consequence if it sets off a chain-reaction leading to Speaker Steny Hoyer a.k.a. Doomsday Scenario

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Someone's been hitting the drain cleaner hard tonight.

I *think* this is directed at me and probably an insult of some sort, but I'm not really sure what you mean.  Could you please elaborate? 

[ON Progressive]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

While I'm sure you mean well and I get that you probably aren't doing this on purpose, but the bolded part is a complete BS attack when used against any member of Congress.  And regular voters will know who he is if the media spends a week doing nothing but concern trolling about how DEMS IN DISARRAY AS TOP LEADER LOSES TO NO NAME BERNIEBRO or some such nonsense.  

More importantly though, it'd be much appreciated if – in the interest of intellectual honesty and having a real discussion – you could respond to the points from my mega-post detailing why progressives are far better off with Crowley in office (at least until after 2022 or so) regardless of any Bush-era apostasies instead of just picking the weakest argument and ignoring every other point I made (no offense).

P.S: No self-respecting Democrat should be unironically using the term "latte liberal."

Who cares? Dems could be up 30 in the GCB and the Beltway pundits would find a way to go #DEMSINDISARRAY. Literally nobody actually cares what they think about anything.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

While I'm sure you mean well and I get that you probably aren't doing this on purpose, but the bolded part is a complete BS attack when used against any member of Congress.  And regular voters will know who he is if the media spends a week doing nothing but concern trolling about how DEMS IN DISARRAY AS TOP LEADER LOSES TO NO NAME BERNIEBRO or some such nonsense.  

More importantly though, it'd be much appreciated if – in the interest of intellectual honesty and having a real discussion – you could respond to the points from my mega-post detailing why progressives are far better off with Crowley in office (at least until after 2022 or so) regardless of any Bush-era apostasies instead of just picking the weakest argument and ignoring every other point I made (no offense).

P.S: No self-respecting Democrat should be unironically using the term "latte liberal."

Who cares? Dems could be up 30 in the GCB and the Beltway pundits would find a way to go #DEMSINDISARRAY. Literally nobody actually cares what they think about anything.

So should I just copy and paste the second paragraph of the post you quoted?  I don't mean that in a smug way or anything like that, but I kinda feel like folks are latching onto the least important thing I've said in this thread and simply ignoring everything else.  I respectfully disagree with your implication that media narratives are politically irrelevant, but regardless, that's easily the least significant of the concerns I raised.  I'm happy to discuss the main issues I raised in my longer post with you, but the part of the short post that you bolded is really a peripheral concern (no offense).