Billboard in Times Square Takes a Shot at Ocasio-Cortez For Amazon's Withdrawal
Representative Alexandria OcasioCortez called the billboard "wack" and "anti-progressive propaganda."
By SHANE GOLDMACHER
Probably the last thing that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs is a billboard to get her more attention or notoriety. But there it was, on 42nd Street in Times Square, a digital attack ad that blamed the freshman Democratic congresswoman for Amazon's decision to pull out of New York, taking with it 25,000 promised jobs. "Thanks for Nothing, AOC!" the ad read, using Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's initials that became ubiquitous even before she officially set foot in Congress.
The ad was paid for by a Texas-based group called the Job Creators Network. In the past, tax records show that the Mercer Family Foundation has funded what appears to be a related group, the Job Creators Alliance, also based in Addison, Tex. The company asserted on its website that Amazon only decided to leave "once opposition from Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, along with other anti-business politicians, ramped up." Ms. Ocasio-Cortez sought to specifically link the ad to the family of Robert Mercer, the financier who had given away millions to Republican and conservative causes and whose daughter, Rebekah, was a key player in the 2016 campaign of President Trump." Few things effectively communicate the power we've built in fighting dark money & anti-worker policies like billionaire-funded groups blowing tons of cash on wack billboards (this one is funded by the Mercers)," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.
The billboard seemed best positioned to reach tourists, sitting directly above Ripley's Believe It or Not! and adjacent to Madame Tussauds, the celebrity wax shrine where Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, was on hand last year to unveil a likeness of Melania Trump.
The billboard was, however, cheered by Laura Ingraham, the conservative commentator. "Check out the sign in Times Sq.!" she wrote in a Twitter post that had been retweeted nearly 10,000 times. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez responded by using a reference to Michael Scott, the character played by Steve Carell in "The Office." "Billionaires paying to put up anti-progressive propaganda in Times Square is like the obscenely rich version of the scene where Michael Scott points to the Bubba Gump and saying 'This is it, this is the heart of civilization, right here,'" she wrote on Twitter.
The Job Creators Network's website said the ad would run for a week. But it was not visible on Thursday afternoon, when a camera for CNBC was trained on the billboard for an hour, as it displayed different content." The billboard went up Wednesday. The contract is scheduled for one week at a cost of about $4,000," Elaine Parker, a spokeswoman for Job Creators Network, said in an email.
After Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's tweets, the company said it bought space on two more billboards, at Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street. "Hey AOC, Saw your wack tweet," read one. The other: "This billboard cost about $4,000. But you cost NY 25,000 jobs and $4,000,000,000 in annual lost wages. Ouch."
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was an outspoken opponent of the Amazon deal, which would have located a new corporate campus near her Queens and Bronx district. But she was hardly a leading organizer on the ground, where local officials and left-leaning activists pushed for the company to make additional concessions or leave. The deal had been negotiated by two of New York's leading Democrats, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, but they were unable to quell a progressive rebellion that sufficiently unnerved executives at one of the world's biggest corporations. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself has said her impact has been overstated. "Grassroots community members led + organized the whole effort. Wouldn't have happened if they weren't there," she said in another tweet.
From New York Times