Conor Lamb's challenge: Build his name. Take down John Fetterman. And do it all with less money.
Conor Lamb has two big problems. To win Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate nomination, he has to catch John Fetterman. And he has to do it with less...
www.post-gazette.com
My home state of Pennsylvania has an interesting and clear history in state-wide elections. It is this: The Democrats hold a majority of the voters, but a large swath of those Democrats will not vote for a whack-job. If the Democrats run someone who is not a whack-job, they will win.
The race to replace outgoing Senator Pat Toomey is the case in point. The two most viable candidates are John Fetterman and Conor Lamb.
To be blunt, Conor Lamb is the sort of Democrat who would win in Pennsylvania. He is handsome, articulate, has a great resume (veteran), and is decidedly not a whack-job.
On the other hand, you have John Fetterman. Fetterman is an interesting human being to be sure. A Harvard-educated do-gooder (and I'm not disparaging him with that description), he took it upon himself for many years to be the self-funded mayor of the extremely depressed, majority Black little hamlet of Braddock, PA. The job "paid" a couple hundred dollars a month, but JF has a bit of family money behind him, so he was able to do the Mayor thing full-time, and from all indications he did a pretty good job of it, winning several terms when one would have considered it extremely unlikely that a white man could win that job. FWIW, he is a giant of a man at 6'8" tall who is known for attending public functions in non-traditional attire. I think they had to tie him down to get him to wear a suit and tie on Inauguration Day.
Fetterman is the current Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, and his most conspicuous duty in that office has been to explore legalization of marijuana. He is NOT an articulate speaker, and one would almost think that the local Media protects him in that shortcoming, as he is never quoted to a greater extent than for a phrase or two - maybe a single sentence. His handlers are now deciding whether to enter him into the obligatory series of Democrat candidate debates, because - I'm speculating here - he will not look good.
So here's the bottom line: Pennsylvania Democrats could make this Senate seat a virtual certainty by nominating Conor Lamb. One CANNOT dislike Lamb, even though he is a Democrat. Fetterman is a complete cipher. Only his intimates know how he will fare in a public, well-publicized campaign, but his conspicuous lack of public speaking skills could hurt him, as well as the general impression that he might be a Left wing whack job. As indicated in the linked article Fetterman has a lot more money in the bank right now than Lamb, but one suspects that the national party sees this election more clearly than the Pennsylvania democrat party, which has a habit of nominating unelectable extremists for state-wide office.
Go Fetterman!
