Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sure has an odd way of campaigning for Bernie Sanders. She doesn’t mention his name.

Last October, Bernie scored the coveted AOC endorsement. What could be better than a young socialist with a huge following to endorse an old socialist who captured the imagination of the socialist wing of the Democrat Party in 2016? AOC, after all, volunteered for the Sanders campaign back then. She has a history with him. Last November he announced that she will fill-in for him on the campaign trail while he is doing his day job in the Senate during the impeachment trial.

AOC is in Iowa for Sanders. During a campaign event in Iowa City (home city of the University of Iowa), liberal filmmaker and activist Michael Moore joined her to fire up the crowd for Bernie. Something caught the attention of reporters, though. AOC never once mentioned Sanders’ name during her speech. Moore served as the warm-up act for AOC. Moore is clearly excited to be serving as a surrogate.

“I’m so excited about our possibilities here. Right here in Iowa,” Moore said. “Bernie was in Dubuque a couple of weeks ago and I scribbled this down here – I came to tears watching him say this.”

“It was a Q-and-A at a big town hall and someone asked him if he thought he was too old to be president of the United States [and Bernie said] ‘I’ve been saying for months, I’ll tell you what’s too old — 40 million people in this country not having health care. That’s too old.’”

Moore championed Sanders for his policies on climate change, the minimum wage and his record on civil rights, before claiming Sanders is the only candidate who can defeat President Trump in November.

“We have to crush Donald J. Trump with the truth and with a candidate who is the opposite of Donald J. Trump,” he said.

Bernie Sanders may have moved Michael Moore to tears of joy with his socialist agenda but he horrifies the rest of us who do not wish to see the destruction of the U.S. economy and our way of life. Moore has one thing right, though – Sanders is the opposite of Trump, who embraces capitalism and our economy reaps the rewards of Trump’s policies.

Moore introduced AOC, the final speaker. She spoke as Moore did and encouraged the crowd to reject the status quo.

“It is bold and it is a risk,” she said. “We hedge our bets, we get more of the same. And the same has not been helping. So our job right now is to come together …We’ve got ten days left, ten days (until the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3).”

The New York Democrat also called for the abolition of two federal immigration agencies — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). She also advocated for Medicare-for-all, and suggested that political leaders craft the nation’s environmental policy around “indigenous wisdom.”

“This is not just about how we win, it’s about how we heal,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “From our bodies to this land, we are going to need entirely new paradigms of public policy in order to heal.”

I’m not sure what AOC means about our bodies’ healing, but I do know that voters did reject the status quo in 2016 when they voted for Donald Trump. Compared to Bernie’s lifetime career in politics, Trump is still the anti-status quo candidate. It’s just very odd that she doesn’t mention his name. Perhaps it is her lack of experience outside of her own district in New York, or maybe it is her own self-involvement. Whatever the reason, someone should pull her aside and remind her that the crowd is there for Bernie and his name should be used over and over again.

AOC and Moore will do Bernie’s bidding Saturday before the candidate is able to get to Iowa due to the impeachment trial schedule. He will be at a second rally, though, Saturday night. He groused about calendar conflicts and said that he and his campaign didn’t plan on missing out on so many events in Iowa this week. Really? Why was the schedule a surprise? Anyone interested in the impeachmentpalooza schedule knew about the starting date and schedule in advance.

“Obviously, when we were planning out our schedule, trust me, we were not expecting to be in Washington this week,” Sanders said in an interview airing Friday on “CBS Evening News.”

“We had set up a number of town meetings all over the state — we usually bring out good crowds — so it is disappointing to me to not be in Iowa talking to the people there,” he added.

Boohoo, Bernie. Democrats should have thought a little further ahead and realized that an impeachment circus would affect the campaign season. The absence of the senators involved in the trial participation are giving good old Joe and Mayor Pete plenty of time with the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire without worrying about competing for time with the senators.

The impeachment trial also puts the three senators who have events in Iowa this weekend – Sanders, Warren, and Klobuchar – in a corner about traveling to Iowa. When the trial adjourns for the day on Saturday, they all have to scramble to fly back to Iowa. This means chartering private jets. How does that inconvenient truth square with all the climate change alarmism in the Democrat Party these days?