Last weekend, I wrote about 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) glomming onto Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in an apparent attempt to breathe new life into his fading campaign. This week, it’s Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who is doing her level best to win Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement.
Ocasio-Cortez dangled her endorsement before the socialist Sanders and the uber-progressive Warren, and they are currently doing what they can to win her approval.
Newsweek reported last week:
In an interview on Capitol Hill Thursday, freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez indicated that she is leaning toward backing either Senator Bernie Sanders or Senator Elizabeth Warren in the crowded Democratic field to win the nomination for president in 2020.“What I would like to see in a presidential candidate is one that has a coherent worldview and logic from which all these policy proposals are coming forward,” she told CNN’s Ryan Nobles. “I think Senator Sanders has that. I also think Senator Warren has that.”When asked about the possibility of formally endorsing a candidate in the expansive field of Democratic contenders, Ocasio-Cortez said she was “entertaining” the idea but that “it’s not going to be for a while.”
Warren wrote a gushing article about Ocasio-Cortez last month in Time, and she has been stepping up her courtship of the largely unpopular freshman representative.
The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez primary is heating up.For the second time in five days, the star freshman congresswoman is appearing alongside Bernie Sanders at a high-profile event. Rep. Ro Khanna, co-chairman of Sanders’ campaign, is talking with Ocasio-Cortez’s staff about the primary. And Sanders’ team told POLITICO that he and Ocasio-Cortez “have had phone calls.”. . . . But Sen. Elizabeth Warren is making an aggressive pitch for Ocasio-Cortez’s nod, too: She’s met with her privately and wrote a gushing essay about her for Time magazine. An aide to Warren said their teams have been in touch.“She is excited about both of their campaigns and the ideas they are putting forward,” said Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez. He added that the congresswoman isn’t planning to endorse soon.. . . . Ocasio-Cortez has spoken positively only about Sanders and Warren when asked about the Democratic field in recent weeks. The competition between Warren and Sanders for her support represents a new front in the delicate cold war between the two for the Democratic Party’s left flank.Landing Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement would be a coup for Warren; even getting her to hold off on formally backing Sanders might be considered a win. For Sanders, an endorsement from her would symbolize that he was consolidating his grip on the left wing of the party even with Warren, a fellow progressive populist, in the race.
While Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement may be a coup for Warren, it’s rather bizarre that the party in general and these two senators in particular endow this unpopular (outside the party base) freshman rep. with so much power.
Ocasio-Cortez, who has stated that she doesn’t care what Americans think of her loopy Green New Deal because she’s “the boss,” must be loving her role as potential king- or queen-maker, but the optics of Warren (and Sanders) fawning over her for a dangled endorsement is unlikely to play well beyond the progressive wing of the party.
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