Conor Lamb's Victory Matters, and Paul Ryan Should Be

New Post Public Reply Private Reply Replies (0) Message Board

Mar 14, 2018 at 11:58 AM 201

Quote:

Conor Lamb's Victory Matters, and Paul Ryan Should Be Scared

Republicans had the money. They had the gerrymandering. They still couldn't do it.

By Charles P. Pierce
Mar 14, 2018

Getty Images
The fundamentally absurd subtext to Tuesday night’s extended exercises in the 18th Congressional District of Pennsylvania was that, by the time of the midterm elections this November, the district will not even exist in its present form.

So, for a couple of months, Conor Lamb and Rick Saccone had been laying clubs on each other for the right to represent a district with, maybe, three months of life left in it.

Nevertheless, Lamb’s razorish victory on Tuesday night is another signifying moment in what has become a year of them now. It doesn’t matter if Lamb was running for Congress in a congressional district that is in some senses now largely imaginary. It doesn’t matter if he was running in Brigadoon.

Lamb is another Democrat who beat another Republican in an electoral district that the Democrat had no business carrying. Or conversely, this was the last chance the Republicans had to win on an electoral map so ludicrously gerrymandered that the state supreme court blew it up and took on itself the job of redrawing the map.

This was the last gasp of 10 years of successful electoral chicanery in Pennsylvania, and the Republicans couldn’t boot their candidate home even with $10 million pumped into the district from the national party and from its vast reservoir of PACs and dark money.

They couldn’t organize it. They couldn’t buy it. And they couldn’t steal it. That pretty much eliminates all possible ways Republicans generally win elections these days, and bringing in the president* for a last-ditch manic episode didn’t work, either. Not even the crazy was enough.

Rick Saccone

There will be some attempt now to minimize what the voters in that district did on Tuesday night. Rick Saccone was a dullard of a candidate. (True.) Conor Lamb is personally going to run Nancy Pelosi out of national politics, so he’s not really a Democratic candidate. (Please to be giving me a break.) It’s a long way until November and Things Can Still Happen. (This theory depends vitally on the president* suddenly becoming Up To The Job. Yeah, right.)

This is whistling very loudly past a very large graveyard. This was a Republican district. It was built to be a Republican district in perpetuity, which is why its days are numbered right now.

In the latter days of the campaign, the Republicans abandoned their economic pitch that was based on the president*’s ability to convince congressional Republicans to pass a massive plutocrat’s wet dream of a tax cut. This was supposed to be the magic bullet in this election. Instead, Saccone decided to let the traditional culture-war boogeypersons out of the closet.

On Monday, for example, Conor Lamb was a wild-eyed "libtard" who was going to let undocumented immigrant doctors perform abortions on your 10-year-old daughter in the middle of a mass gay wedding in Greene County. On Wednesday, according to those same Republicans, Conor Lamb was basically Mark Meadows in Democratic drag. Are the Republicans pretty well and truly fcked up as a party right now? Signs point to “Yes.”

In his victory speech, which came before anyone had called the race, which MSNBC’s Brian Williams couldn’t resist telling his audience, Lamb interestingly leaned very hard on thanking the support he’d received from organized labor. In fact, he talked more—and more sincerely—about unions in that speech than any candidate I’ve heard since the beginning of Bernie Sanders’ campaign back in 2015.

“Side by side with us at each step of the way were the men and women in organized labor…Organized labor built Western Pennsylvania...Tonight, they have reasserted their right to have a major part in our future."

This is beyond encouraging. I am sure that Lamb is going to take some positions that are going to make me crazy. (If he takes a dive on guns in this historical moment, or if he really becomes part of an effort to make, say, Tim Ryan the speaker of a newly elected Democratic House, the shebeen will not be pleased.)

But telling labor that he owes his victory largely to its effort, and actually meaning it, is a very welcome—and an extremely shrewd—move for a rookie, and it evinces the kind of awareness that he’s going to need to win re-election in whatever district he has to run in when this one disappears.

In any event, they were not the words of the candidate described in a statement by Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin. Ryan contended that Lamb really, sort of, almost ran as, you know, a Republican.

Keep whistling, Mr. Speaker. Lamb ran specifically on preserving and protecting the social safety-net programs you're so hell-bent on destroying.

And, not for nothing, but do you know what congressional district is, theoretically, anyway, more Democratic than the one Conor Lamb won on Tuesday night?

Yours.

Sleep well.

Newer

Older

Scroll down for more posts ▼

Top 10 Most Recent News Articles

Navimow's H5 Pro Mower Marries Tech with Nature Care

Garden Tech Reinvented: Enter the H5 Pro Mower Welcome to the 21st-century garden, where robotic ingenuity meets a genuine regard for nature. Folks, the Navimow H5 Pro just rolled onto the scene and it’s tearing up the old playbook of garden maintenance. It’s like blending Silicon Valley tech with Jane Goodall’s wildlife sensibilities. We're talking zero-edge...

RMX's QuantrusX™: Transforming Edge Intelligence

The Edge Gets Real RMX Industries is tearing up the old rulebook of intelligence with their latest move. They’re calling it Real-World Intelligence, and right off the bat, RMX (OTCQB:RMXI) makes it clear they're not here to sell us some dusty data center illusion anymore. They're putting intelligence where the action is, at the physical edge, and that's something you...

California's Insurance Shake-up: What It Means

There are plenty of rules in life that seem useless until suddenly they're not. California just passed a few fresh ones aiming to rein in the insurance sector. Zap your attention over to three new bills targeting fair insurance payouts and boosting coverage availability. It's a gust of wind in a typically frustrating insurance landscape, especially for the folks who've...

Holland America Evolution: Revamping Luxury at Sea

Setting Sail on a Fresh Wave of Luxury It's a whole new world aboard the Oosterdam, folks. Holland America's making waves with the debut of a reimagined Ocean Bar that promises to inject a healthy dose of glamour back into cruising. Forget the stuffy maritime tales of yesteryear; this isn't just a facelift—it's a full-blown Renaissance at sea. A nod to the golden age of...

Huawei Unleashes Bold New Flagship Devices in Munich

Huawei's Bold Move in Munich When I hear about yet another product launch, I often roll my eyes but this one, folks, deserves a second glance. Huawei dropped a news bomb in Munich with their 'Chase the Wild' event, unveiling a huge lineup of flagship gadgets. This isn't your run-of-the-mill release; the mix of smart wearables, tablets, smartphones, and audio gear marks...

TCOM Secures $600M Deal to Boost NATO's Defense

TCOM's Pivotal $600 Million Defense Contract How often do you hear about a deal north of $600 million that practically revamps a company's strategic future? That's precisely what's hitting the books at TCOM right now. They've scored a heavy-hitting Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract to fortify NATO's eastern front with Poland. I'll tell you this—it’s one of the...

Victory Capital Faces Legal Scrutiny Over $7B Deal

Victory Capital's $7 Billion Gamble Under the Microscope New day, new twist in the financial soap opera we call mergers and acquisitions. This time, the spotlight shines on Victory Capital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: VCTR) and its big-dollar dance to acquire First Eagle for a whopping $7 billion. Now, Juan Monteverde, Esq., and his team over at Monteverde & Associates PC have...

Alcatraz AI: A Silent Titan in Data Center Security

Why Alcatraz AI is the Security of Choice Forget flashy press releases and splashy marketing campaigns. Alcatraz AI, a company operating out of the hustle and bustle of Cupertino, has managed to quietly dominate a key sector without many folks being the wiser. What's their claim to fame, you ask? They're the chosen gatekeepers for over half of the hyperscale data centers...

RealityMine Appoints CPO Amidst Strong Growth Momentum

Pushing the Boundaries of Behavioral Data When a company like RealityMine posts a whopping 75% year-over-year revenue bump, you know they're not here to mess around. Enter Soumya Bijjal, a seasoned pro stepping in as their inaugural Chief Product Officer. This isn't just about adding to the C-suite boys' club; it's about locking in on a goldmine of behavioral data that's...

Telit Cinterion Secures U.S. Manufacturing with PA Facility

Telit Cinterion Takes a Bold Step in U.S. Manufacturing Here's a move you don't see every day: Telit Cinterion, one of the leading players in the IoT scene, is planting its flag firmly in the good ol' U.S. of A. They're ramping up to start churning out 4G and 5G IoT modules right on American soil by October 2026. This isn't just a small-scale ambition, folks. We're...