# AOC has a formidable primary challenger in journalist Maria Caruso-Cabrera **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 5, 2020, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148 "2020-04-05T20:55:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![tafinucane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@tafinucane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tafinucane)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/81 "2020-04-08T23:35:02Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > None of the jobs are gonna go there now. > > Whether or not her constituents care, or care enough that they won’t vote for her, I don’t know. Maybe “you shouldn’t have to worry about working” is part of her appeal, or at least not a drawback. Part of her apparent bewilderment at the idea that we have to pay for anything, that government just magically summons the Money Fairy and everybody gets free health care and free college and free energy. > > Regards, > Shodan I think her constituents are smart enough to know a bad deal when they see one, or at the very least are self-serving enough to realize it doesn’t benefit them–even indirectly. I find it hypocritical that you mock paying for social welfare, but don’t object to the corporate subsidy. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/82 "2020-04-09T11:57:58Z")
> [@tafinucane](#): > > I find it hypocritical that you mock paying for social welfare, but don’t object to the corporate subsidy. I wondered about this too. The best I can figure is that **Shodan** might think that spending doesn’t count if it goes to those who already have a lot of money? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/83 "2020-04-09T14:13:31Z")
AOC’s line of reasoning (so to speak) seems to be that welfare spending is fine, as long as nobody has to go to work. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/84 "2020-04-09T14:54:38Z")
And yours would be “corporate handouts don’t count as welfare”. Well, I assume that’s what your line would be if you were forced to stop ignoring the point. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/85 "2020-04-09T22:29:34Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > Fundraising and Branding > She’s talented at getting people to send her money. Fundraising. This is 90% of everything in politics. I expect it’s the thing that most newcomers find most difficult. If you want to run for and hold public office, your local and national party machines are going to expect you to bring in cash. It’s like a job in sales, you get a quota that you’re expected to meet. And apparently this young woman has a real talent for bringing in the bucks and she doesn’t have to work that hard. And she doesn’t pay her dues to the DCCC. She prefers to pick which candidates she thinks needs the support and frequently that candidate is a primary challenger to a sitting Democrat. > [@](#): > > Everyone knows who she is. She has a short snappy recognizable nickname. Everyone in politics, everyone that follows politics, and a staggering number of people that don’t - know who she is and what she stands for. > > There are politicians that have worked their entire lives building a career and they still don’t have the fundraising capability and name recognition that she does. And they have the exact same social media tools that she does. Everyone knows who Kim Kardashian is too. > [@](#): > > Not going to happen. > > I never lived in her district but I lived in the district next door when she was elected. This is a deep deep blue district. Her Republican opponent in 2018 didn’t even file the paperwork required to fundraise and spend money, the Republican Party LITERALLY did not want to spend as much as a penny on that race. That is why it was such a big deal when she won her primary. The primary IS the deciding election. I also grew up in a neighboring queens district and lived in her district when I was first starting out. It was a largely working class immigrant neighborhood. I thought maybe Elizabeth Crowley might take a credible run at her but the people who might have been encouraging her are probably not encouraging her now that AOC has backed off her threats to primary safe blue seats. I think she is probably safe for the time being. If she pulls another stunt like Amazon HQ2 again, I think she is in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/86 "2020-04-09T22:48:00Z")
> [@tafinucane](#): > > I think her constituents are smart enough to know a bad deal when they see one, or at the very least are self-serving enough to realize it doesn’t benefit them–even indirectly. > > I find it hypocritical that you mock paying for social welfare, but don’t object to the corporate subsidy. So do you understand where the $3 billion was coming from? It wasn’t NYC handing over $3 billion it had in its coffers. Amazon was going to develop 4-8 million square feet of space in Long Island City An area that has been ripe for development since I was a kid. Amazon would receive a $3 billion tax break. The project increases the value of the property immensely, the incentive gives them a break on the real estate tax on that increased property value. The tax break is contingent on Amazon creating at least 25,000 direct jobs within 10 years and 40,000 direct jobs within 15 years, the incentives are cut or eliminated entirely if they don’t meet these objectives. Those jobs were expected to pay about $150K. The development was supposed to generate several times as many lower paying jobs in the area. Amazon was also obligated to spend about $2.5 billion on new schools, a “tech incubator” campus and new green spaces. The biggest criticism from people who know what they are talking about was lack of consideration of the strain all this economic activity was going to place on the subway system. The project was projected to generate $27.5 billion in tax revenue over 15 years. It’s not like NYC was going to take money they could have spent on more medicaid and diverting it to Amazon. They were giving Amazon a break in taxes that they were not otherwise going to collect at all. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/87 "2020-04-10T13:54:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The tax break is contingent on Amazon creating at least 25,000 direct jobs within 10 years and 40,000 direct jobs within 15 years, the incentives are cut or eliminated entirely if they don’t meet these objectives. Those jobs were expected to pay about $150K. The development was supposed to generate several times as many lower paying jobs in the area. > > Amazon was also obligated to spend about $2.5 billion on new schools, a “tech incubator” campus and new green spaces. A common factor for many such deals is that they don’t pan out as planned and agreed. Once a company as big as Amazon has landed one such deal they keep pushing. “Oh, we haven’t had the expected growth, so we need to keep the tax break without filling the obligations.”, “Oh, we could start paying full taxes, but we don’t want to. Cut us another deal or we will leave. Atlanta is willing to give us a great deal if we relocate there.” Massive tax breaks are simply bad politics as long as corporations are ruled almost exclusively by profit motive and can play political subdivisions against each other. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/88 "2020-04-10T22:46:49Z")
> [@naita](#): > > A common factor for many such deals is that they don’t pan out as planned and agreed. Once a company as big as Amazon has landed one such deal they keep pushing. “Oh, we haven’t had the expected growth, so we need to keep the tax break without filling the obligations.”, “Oh, we could start paying full taxes, but we don’t want to. Cut us another deal or we will leave. Atlanta is willing to give us a great deal if we relocate there.” > > Massive tax breaks are simply bad politics as long as corporations are ruled almost exclusively by profit motive and can play political subdivisions against each other. WTF are you talking about? These tax breaks are not based on mutual trust and good faith. The tax breaks are based on a contract and if Amazon does not fulfill their end of the contract, they do not get the tax breaks. I agree that tax breaks are bad politics. I have always held that tax competitions between countries was a race to the bottom. Tax competition between states is cannibalism. But that doesn’t mean that the agreements on which tax breaks are given are not enforcable. When the Republicans give tax cuts to corporations and the rich, the corporations and the rich do not provise to hire more people, etc. They don’t pay for the tax breaks after they get them, they paid for them before they were passed. When cities give tax breaks to corporations they do not give those tax breaks based on mutual trust and good will. The corporation insists on a legally enforceable contract to protect their right to those tax breaks and that contract also say that those tax breaks disappear if the corporations doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. Why in the world would NYC continue to give tax breaks they are not required to give? Amazon will have already made billions of dollars of investment in their HQ2, they’re not going to walk away. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/89 "2020-04-10T23:19:35Z")
What makes her formidable? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/90 "2020-04-11T07:14:08Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > What makes her formidable? I don’t rightly know. But I was going to say— My district is represented in the House by a low-key liberal Democratic congressman who’s been there for six terms. In the upcoming primary he’s being challenged by a young woman from the left, very much in the mold of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Except here the congressman is steadily popular, while the challenger I had no idea about until I searched on Google for a while. She’s not exactly standing out in the media. I like the incumbent just fine, and expect him to coast to easy victory in the primary. But I donated to the challenger and I’m going to vote for her. Why? Because I feel like it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/91 "2020-04-11T15:15:02Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > WTF are you talking about? > > These tax breaks are not based on mutual trust and good faith. The tax breaks are based on a contract and if Amazon does not fulfill their end of the contract, they do not get the tax breaks. > > I agree that tax breaks are bad politics. I have always held that tax competitions between countries was a race to the bottom. Tax competition between states is cannibalism. But that doesn’t mean that the agreements on which tax breaks are given are not enforcable. > > When the Republicans give tax cuts to corporations and the rich, the corporations and the rich do not provise to hire more people, etc. They don’t pay for the tax breaks after they get them, they paid for them before they were passed. > > When cities give tax breaks to corporations they do not give those tax breaks based on mutual trust and good will. The corporation insists on a legally enforceable contract to protect their right to those tax breaks and that contract also say that those tax breaks disappear if the corporations doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. > > Why in the world would NYC continue to give tax breaks they are not required to give? Amazon will have already made billions of dollars of investment in their HQ2, they’re not going to walk away. The issues isn’t continuing tax breaks after promises have been broken, it’s that the broken promises are usually only obvious in hindsight and clawing money back from unwilling companies is costly. There are reasons why the politicians have been more stringent about including clawback clauses and creating bodies to enforce them, but companies still speculate in that being more expensive than just taking the loss. Amazon successfully threatened to abandon their HQ in Seattle, why would you think they wouldn’t try the same in NY? ---
**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/92 "2020-04-12T00:48:42Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > What makes her formidable? MCC is representative of a 70% Democrat (like Biden) vs AOC - the 30% Democrat (like Sanders). Sanders was clearly defined and Biden was just a prototype anti-Sanders who had no real campaign spending in the last couple of weeks of the primary season. I voted for “Anyone But Bernie” for example. My first choice was Senator Bennett. Now that is a nationwide split of course (70-30). AOC’s new district may be a 50-50 district. If that is the case MCC would be a formidable candidate. In the 2018 district AOC would be a near lock. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/93 "2020-04-12T02:38:46Z")
> [@Linden\_Arden](#): > > MCC is representative of a 70% Democrat (like Biden) vs AOC - the 30% Democrat (like Sanders). > > Sanders was clearly defined and Biden was just a prototype anti-Sanders who had no real campaign spending in the last couple of weeks of the primary season. > > I voted for “Anyone But Bernie” for example. My first choice was Senator Bennett. > > Now that is a nationwide split of course (70-30). > > AOC’s new district may be a 50-50 district. If that is the case MCC would be a formidable candidate. In the 2018 district AOC would be a near lock. She isn’t a representative of anything. Are there polls? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/94 "2020-04-12T04:40:27Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I don’t rightly know. But I was going to say— > > My district is represented in the House by a low-key liberal Democratic congressman who’s been there for six terms. In the upcoming primary he’s being challenged by a young woman from the left, very much in the mold of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Except here the congressman is steadily popular, while the challenger I had no idea about until I searched on Google for a while. She’s not exactly standing out in the media. I like the incumbent just fine, and expect him to coast to easy victory in the primary. But I donated to the challenger and I’m going to vote for her. Why? Because I feel like it. 🙂 Well, to be fair, AOC didn’t stand out in the media until she won. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/95 "2020-04-12T04:54:08Z")
> [@naita](#): > > The issues isn’t continuing tax breaks after promises have been broken, it’s that the broken promises are usually only obvious in hindsight and clawing money back from unwilling companies is costly. There are reasons why the politicians have been more stringent about including clawback clauses and creating bodies to enforce them, but companies still speculate in that being more expensive than just taking the loss. It sounds like you don’t understand how the deal was structured. NYC was going to get more in real estate tax revenue even after the tax deals because the assessed value of the property was going to increase by more than the tax breaks. > [@](#): > > Amazon successfully threatened to abandon their HQ in Seattle, why would you think they wouldn’t try the same in NY? They can TRY. I mean why haven’t ALL the large corporations in NYC done this? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/96 "2020-04-12T05:43:19Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Well, to be fair, AOC didn’t stand out in the media until she won. The difference is that she caught fire, while in my district the AOC equivalent just isn’t going anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/97 "2020-04-12T08:08:25Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > She isn’t a representative of anything. Are there polls? [There’s not even a single policy position.](https://michellecc2020.com/) All I know is her “conservatism good, AOC Squad bad” stances, and blind support for Israel. There’s no “there” there, at least so far. Two months in, I’d expect more from a serious candidate. ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/98 "2020-04-12T09:06:21Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > What makes her formidable? Shodan likes her. ---
**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/99 "2020-04-12T15:23:31Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > [There’s not even a single policy position.](https://michellecc2020.com/) > > All I know is her “conservatism good, AOC Squad bad” stances, and blind support for Israel. There’s no “there” there, at least so far. Two months in, I’d expect more from a serious candidate. MCC is pro-choice, pro-immigrant, and pro gay rights. How does that fit in the Republican Party? Democrats need the Blue Dogs back. If there were still Kent Conrads, Byron Dorgans, Claire McCaskills, Heidi Heitkamps, Mark Pryors, and Blanche Lincolns in the Senate there would be no Majority Leader McConnell. 70% is greater than 30%. Blue Dog types won big in the House in 2018. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148/100 "2020-04-12T18:40:31Z")
> [@Linden\_Arden](#): > > AOC’s new district may be a 50-50 district. If that is the case MCC would be a formidable candidate. In the 2018 district AOC would be a near lock. I spent half my life (I’m 60) in Rep. Ocaso-Cortez’s district. And I still live in New York City, albeit in a different district. There is no possible way that her redrawn district will be a 50-50 district, no matter how bizarre the new lines are, no matter how weird the shape. It’s simply not possible. There is not a single Republican congressperson from New York City. There aren’t that many from the whole state. Five, I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aoc-has-a-formidable-primary-challenger-in-journalist-maria-caruso-cabrera/851148.md?page=6)