NEW YORK _ A Bronx Republican who blames Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Amazon's retreat from New York City announced Tuesday she plans to run against the progressive lawmaker in next year's congressional midterms.
Ruth Papazian, who operates an anti-Ocasio-Cortez Facebook group called "Bronx Bolshevik Bulletin," confirmed to the New York Daily News she's mounting a long-shot Republican 2020 bid against the 29-year-old rookie congresswoman.
A medical trade magazine writer who has lived in the Bronx all her life, Papazian said she has already set up "an exploratory committee" and plans to file official papers with the Federal Election Commission in July.
The 61-year-old Papazian ran a grassroots campaign urging New Yorkers to cast write-in votes for ex-Rep. Joe Crowley in the November midterms after Ocasio-Cortez defeated him in a stunning primary upset. The write-in effort failed.
The Bronx Republican uses her Facebook page daily to trash Ocasio-Cortez's "socialist" ideas and has suggested in several posts that the left-wing lawmaker move to Venezuela "where you really belong."
She has also pointed fingers at Ocasio-Cortez for Amazon's decision last month to pull the plug on plans to build its second headquarters in Long Island City.
"#BronxBolshevik is so full of herself that she has a pathological need to lead every Social Justice parade, and joined outside agitators to kill the hopes and dreams of a neighborhood whose affairs she had no business interfering with," Papazian posted on Feb. 17, using her alliterative nickname for Ocasio-Cortez.
Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives launched an aggressive advocacy effort against Amazon's planned development, arguing the city was offering the retail giant massive tax breaks without much benefit for the Queens community.
Papazian, like some moderate Democrats, contends Ocasio-Cortez and her progressive entourage killed thousands of jobs by driving Amazon out of town.
Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, declined to comment on Papazian's slights but welcomed her ballot-box challenge.
"Democracy is a beautiful thing and we think more people should participate in it," Trent told the Daily News.
