During a rally for 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), progressive darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) chided South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg for accepting political donations from billionaires, Fox News reported.
"For anyone who accuses us of instituting purity tests, it’s called having values. It’s called giving a damn. It’s called having standards for your conduct, to not be funded by billionaires but to be funded by the people, which is different," she told a crowd in Los Angeles on Saturday. "Let me tell you something… I go to work all the time and I hear people say, 'What will my donors think?' I hear that phrase and I hear and I see that billionaires get members of Congress on speed dial and waitresses don’t, okay? There’s a difference.”
It would be great for people like Ocasio-Cortez to rail against billionaires if they at least lived by these statements they make. It seems as though she forget that her 2018 congressional campaign accepted $2,700 from billionaire Tom Steyer, who is also running for president, OpenSecrets revealed.
The issue of whether or not wealthy donors should be able to "buy" access to a candidate was discussed during the last Democratic debate. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took shots at Buttigieg for having lavish fundraisers in "wine caves" with donors. And Sanders joined in on the punching.
"We don’t go to rich people’s wine caves. This is a campaign of the working class of this country, by the working class, and for the working class," Sanders said about his presidential campaign. "Our campaign has received more contributions from more people than any candidate in the history of the United States of America. We don’t have a super PAC. We don’t want a super PAC."
Sanders might want to do a deeper dive into his campaign surrogates and their own campaign finances. Seems as though he has some hypocrites speaking on his behalf.