The poster-child for the Democratic Party

In the spirit of Christmas, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican party.

The never-shy, soon-to-be youngest female Congresswoman, is the new darling of the Socialist left.

The 29-year-old New Yorker caught national headlines with her primary election victory over a 10-term Democratic incumbent and, in a flash, became the new face of the Democratic party's emerging left wing.

And it's worth noting that her rise in the eyes of the media says much about the shallowness of the Democratic bench going into the 2020 elections.

Let's just say the newly-elected Congresswoman has much to learn.

Her entry onto the national stage was, to put it mildly, unexpected.

She garnered 15,897 votes in the August primary election in a district with almost a quarter of a million registered Democrats.

That vote total is about the population of Sikeston.

But apparently 15,000 or so votes in a nation of 300-plus million residents is enough to put you at the top of the Democratic pecking order.

Speaking this past week to a group of like-minded Socialists, Ocasio-Cortez compared her election victory to the moon landing and the civil rights movement.

I told you she was never shy.

Ocasio-Cortez is the leading voice within the leftist movement calling for a Green New Deal and the always-popular Medicare for All.

She wants more government, more regulation, more taxes and less freedoms.

In other words, she is truly the poster child for what has become of the once-proud Democratic party.

Granted, there's a learning curve for the young legislator.

She recently got confused speaking about the three branches of government and her election comparison to the Democrat's success with the moon landing actually took place under a Republican President.

"We are the party of King, of Roosevelt, of the ones who went to the moon," she told the adoring crowd hanging on her every word.

Well actually, two out of three ain't bad.

Ocasio-Cortez is a media creation in a current social culture that craves the latest gadget.

She is an attractive (if I can still say that) minority who checks all of the familiar liberal boxes.

Like the new shiny ornament on the Democratic holiday tree, over time she will fade into the sidelines and be placed for safekeeping until next year.

Or the other option. She'll fall from the tree, come crashing to the ground and shatter into a million little liberal pieces.

Michael Jensen is the publisher of the Standard Democrat in Sikeston, Missouri.