Social Conor Lamb, House Moderate, on Biden’s Win, ‘the Squad’ and the Future of the Democratic Party

[Lead]

Some background on this congressman. He got some national stage time in 2017 when he ran in a special election for PA's 18th congressional district. It was a district that went strongly for Trump in 2016 but he managed to win it by under 1,000 votes. At the time, I remember pointing out to people this guy shouldn't be considered a generic issue democrat because of a few of his positions on guns, fracking, etc. Shortly after in 2018, the Supreme Court redrew the gerrymandered districts in the state, leading Lamb to run in the now 17th Congressional District by 40,000 votes. This year, he won in the same district by just 10,000 votes and was vocal with Pelosi and leadership that the party went the wrong direction in national messaging.

This interview sums up some of those in-party fault lines that exist and I think the interview plays into the whole dilemma of how a party can't simply run the same within all districts and expect results. You see here, Lamb directly draws some criticism to AOC and her expectation that the party could all run under her same stances. It's a short read, I suggest just clicking the link and going through it.

Conor Lamb, House Moderate, on Biden’s Win, ‘the Squad’ and the Future of the Democratic Party
New York TImes

What went wrong for House Democrats when they were supposed to pick up seats?

I’m giving you an honest account of what I’m hearing from my own constituents, which is that they are extremely frustrated by the message of defunding the police and banning fracking.
Because those things aren’t just unpopular, they’re completely unrealistic, and they aren’t going to happen. And they amount to false promises by the people that call for them.
If someone in your family makes their living in some way connected to natural gas, whether on the pipeline itself, or you know, even in a restaurant that serves natural gas workers, this isn’t something to joke around about or be casual about in your language.
That’s what we’re trying to say: that the rhetoric and the policies and all that stuff — it has gone way too far. It needs to be dialed back. It needs to be rooted in common sense, in reality, and yes, politics. Because we need districts like mine to stay in the majority and get something done for the people that we care about the most.

Let’s take that issue. Joe Biden did not support defunding the police. Almost all the members of the Democratic Congress, even folks like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, came out against it. What is the party supposed to do that it didn’t?

I think we can do it much more clearly and repetitively and show it with our actions. We need to have a unified Democratic message about good law enforcement and how to keep people safe, while addressing the systemic racism that I do believe exists and the racial inequities that absolutely do exist. And when we passed the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, that’s exactly what we did.

But the people that I was on the phone with, when we were passing that at the time, were not the freshmen members who are criticizing us today. It was Karen Bass and Cedric Richmond and Colin Allred — and I was listening to them. And, you know, pretty much most of our moderate conservative Democrats all voted for that bill. We listened, we compromised and we got something done. And that’s what this job is really about.

Is it the view of moderate Democrats that the progressives or the so-called Squad has taken up too much space in the national conversation?

I wouldn’t put it that way. Because that really focuses on them as individuals and their personalities. And that is not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to have a discussion about policy, not personality. And I want to be really clear on that, because I respect every one of those members and how hard they worked to get elected and how hard they have worked to stay elected and represent their constituencies. But the fact is that they and others are advocating policies that are unworkable and extremely unpopular.
So I would just say that our view is more that we want to have a clearer, sharper, more unified message on policy itself, regardless of who gets the credit or who is in the limelight for that.

In the Democratic primary, even as progressive candidates lost, polling showed that their issues remained popular among Democrats. Even things like single-payer health insurance or things like the Green New Deal. What’s your response to that?

At the end of the day, it’s individual candidates that have to win races, and then work with their fellow officeholders to pass bills into law and change people’s lives. So you can tell me all the polling you want, but you have to win elections.

And I’ve now been through three very difficult elections in a Republican-leaning district, with the president personally campaigning against me. And I can tell you that people are not clamoring for the two policies that you just asked about. So, that’s just what probably separates a winner from a loser in a district like mine.

On Saturday, I interviewed Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and she mentioned you and how some House moderates ran their campaigns. I wanted to get a fact check quickly: Did you all spend just $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election?

She doesn’t have any idea how we ran our campaign, or what we spent, to be honest with you. So yeah, her statement was wrong. But there’s a deeper truth there, which is this — that our districts and our campaigns are extremely different. You know, I just leave it at that.

You mentioned sniping. Are progressives leading that or are moderates also doing so? I’m thinking of all the anonymous quotes attacking members of the left, something that she mentioned.

But I got to say, as you’ve talked a lot about Representative Ocasio-Cortez, she can put her name behind stuff and that’s I guess courageous, but when it’s a damaging idea or bad policy, like her tweeting out that fracking is bad in the middle of a presidential debate when we’re trying to win western Pennsylvania — that’s not being anything like a team player. And it’s honestly giving a false and ineffective promise to people that makes it very difficult to win the areas where President Trump is most popular in campaigns.

I thought I'd post this one here and suggest you read the whole interview. It really shows some perspective of the range a party has despite being all rolled up in the same group. One thing I believe him and AOC do have in common however has been their displeasure with Pelosi. Lamb voted for Kennedy last time a vote came up for majority leader and obviously AOC has been very vocal about Pelosi as well.

 

[Lead]

@MMAisGod / @Jack V Savage , right out the gate, he discusses his unhappiness with how the defund the police message came about. He does have clear policies differences too but that one seems to touch on messaging v. policy aligning.

 

[Sketch]

"Is it the view of moderate Democrats that the progressives or the so-called Squad has taken up too much space in the national conversation?"

I'm all for more AOC on the TV, I welcome it. She's got some lovely milkers.

 

[nac386]

I almost made a thread about this article yesterday, and I never got around to it. I like this guy so far, and he may have a really bright future in the party. I think he has more wide appeal than the more progressive candidates. In the end, you have to be popular in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

 

[Lead]

"Is it the view of moderate Democrats that the progressives or the so-called Squad has taken up too much space in the national conversation?"

I'm all for more AOC on the TV, I welcome it. She's got some lovely milkers.

This is not what was said

 

[Anung Un Rama]

This is a coordinated effort to dismiss the progressive wing of the DNC, and its very obvious.
meanwhile every candidate that ran on m4a and other progressive issues won their races.

 

[Sketch]

This is a coordinated effort to dismiss the progressive wing of the DNC, and its very obvious.
meanwhile every candidate that ran on m4a and other progressive issues won their races.

Funny how that works huh? Hmm.

 

[Headkicktoleg]

Must be hard to pretend to be on the same team as someone as dumb as AOC

 

[HereticBD]

This is a coordinated effort to dismiss the progressive wing of the DNC, and its very obvious.

Get used to it.

Blue no matter who, right? Enjoy.

 

[Headkicktoleg]

This is a coordinated effort to dismiss the progressive wing of the DNC, and its very obvious.
meanwhile every candidate that ran on m4a and other progressive issues won their races.

Maybe because like 80% of America doesn't want dumb liberal shit

 

[reveler]

m4a1 for all

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Get used to it.

Blue no matter who, right? Enjoy.

Well the red were t going to do the right thing , at least some people in the dnc are willing to try.

 

[HereticBD]

Well the red were t going to do the right thing , at least some people in the dnc are willing to try.

Enjoy their "trying".

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Maybe because like 80% of America doesn't want dumb liberal shit

You must have misread my post, or are ignorant of the data (probably both)

 

[Headkicktoleg]

You must have misread my post, or are ignorant of the data (probably both)

Your post had zero data.

 

[Lead]

This is a coordinated effort to dismiss the progressive wing of the DNC, and its very obvious.
meanwhile every candidate that ran on m4a and other progressive issues won their races.

I think it's someone who is in a state where those positions aren't as popular voicing his concern about making them the national policy. PA is one of the states it didn't poll as well in:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/state...ll-could-cost-democrats-the-blue-wall-in-2020

As far as the NY Times decision to give him that platform to blast them, maybe there is a point there.

Must be hard to pretend to be on the same team as someone as dumb as AOC

It's just one of the dilemmas you get with a two party system. AOC has already stated in most countries, her and Biden wouldn't even be in the same party but since we have a farther right group, you get them in the same party.

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

I almost made a thread about this article yesterday, and I never got around to it. I like this guy so far, and he may have a really bright future in the party. I think he has more wide appeal than the more progressive candidates. In the end, you have to be popular in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Sherrod Brown is very progressive and he's won Ohio statewide 3 times with pretty comfortable margins.


And Fetterman won statewide in PA in 2018.

He's going for Toomey's seat in 2022

 

[Lead]

Sherrod Brown is very progressive and he's won Ohio statewide 3 times with pretty comfortable margins

Depends on where you look at it. He is actually in the same camp as Lamb on the M4A piece. Maybe personally, he'd be for it in a heartbeat but he also knows who votes for him. Its more of a gradual, slow progress that might lead to the same result but I think that makes all the difference in messaging.

Sherrod Brown: 'Terrible mistake' for Democratic nominee to support 'Medicare for All'

 

[Ares Black]

Your post had zero data.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/maj...uch-as-paid-maternity-leave-free-college.html

https://slate.com/business/2020/11/progressives-election-minimum-wage-marijuana-medicaid.html

https://www.americanprogress.org/is...ressive-policies-that-make-families-stronger/

https://www.collegemedianetwork.com...s-supporting-progressive-policies-nationwide/

According to a late March 2019 CNBC All-America Economic Survey of almost 1,000 American adults, the United States is moving center-left on a wide variety of economic and political issues impacting their own personal lives. While the country has become more socially liberal on sociocultural issues such as LGBTQIA+ rights, abortion, cannabis legalization, and affirmative action for women as well as non-white persons of color, favorability for progressive fiscal policies are slowly rising.

The survey indicates support for proposed progressive fiscal programs are gradually on the rise with 84% supporting paid parental leave, 75% supporting public-funded childcare, 60% supporting a higher minimum wage, 57% supporting tuition-free and debt free public higher education, 54% supporting a Medicare for All single-payer healthcare system, and almost 30% support for a universal basic income.

The majority of the proposed policies are already becoming the mainstream within the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. The future of action towards these progressive proposals will depend on the leadership within the Democratic Party as well as its state parties nationwide.

 

[Overtures]

I support him. People should listen.


Trying to talk down hard lefters is as difficult as talking down Trumptards...


actually that was a joke. there's no comparison