It’s the demographics, stupid.
“Stupid” in this case doesn’t so much apply to Queens Congressman Joe Crowley, currently the #4 ranking Democrat in the US House of Representatives, and—with his upset primary loss last night to 28 year old first-time candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—soon to be an ex-Congressman, as it does to the political wiseguys and pundits who saw the 56-year-old Crowley as the next Democratic Speaker, and therefore as politically invulnerable in one of the most heavily Democratic districts in the country.
Crowley’s Queens-Bronx district includes Archie Bunker’s old neighborhood, but the old neighborhood ain’t what it used to be. Today NY’s 14th Congressional district is roughly 50% Latino and 25% “other minorities”. Crowley wasn’t/isn’t a bad representative for his district; it’s just that times have changed.
And, like so much of the Trump era, there are echoes of the Nixon/Watergate era in Crowley’s defeat. In the spring of 1972, legendary Brooklyn Democratic party boss Meade Esposito grumbled to Jimmy Breslin about longtime Rep. Emanuel Celler:
“This is how Manny runs a campaign. He gives me a plaque and I’m supposed to make sure everything is all right in his district. He never comes around….”*
“He has no trouble, has he?”
“Well, there’s some broad says she’s going to run against him the primary or something. You know these freaking broads. Who knows what she wants? It don’t matter. How the hell can you run against the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee? Manny’s a national landmark.” (p. 92)
The “broad” was Liz Holtzman, then a 30 year-old lawyer and party activist. In his Watergate book, How The Good Guys Finally Won, Breslin recounts what happened next, and its political significance:
“Only 23 per cent of the people in the district voted in the June primary. Elizabeth Holtzman received 15,596 votes; Emanuel Celler had 14,986. By the margin of 610, she was in Congress. The fabled Celler was retired, and in a Washington apartment on the morning of June 21, a virtually unknown Congressman, Peter Rodino of Newark, New Jersey, found he was the next Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
The primary election between Holtzman and Celler could be considered one of the most meaningful elections the nation has had. If Celler had won, he would have dominated the impeachment process with the Judiciary Committee, as he dominated everything about the Committee for his thirty years as Chairman. Brilliant but egotistical, he would have been quite abrasive in such a delicate process. Particularly to needed Republican votes.” (p. 93)
Two years later, in 1974, the “Watergate babies”—over 50 new, young Democratic representatives and senators—followed in Holtzman’s wake and transformed how Congress works.
Ocasio-Cortez’ victory is another signal of a new demographic change inexorably rumbling through the nation and its politics. The baby boomers are retiring from public life and dying off; the millennials are taking their places. It’s a disruptive, chaotic process—as is all demographic change—and it’s going to open up new possibilities for political change that the older and retiring generations can’t imagine.
Like Joe Crowley losing a primary election to a rookie half his age.
*Another echo: Crowley refused to debate Ocasio-Cortez, making a similar mistake to Celler who “never came around”.