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Conor Lamb is a lawyer and politician best known for his time as the former United States Representative for Pennsylvania’s 17th congressional district, I interviewed Mr. Lamb on his personal opinions, life experiences, and hobbies.
(Avonews) “Who is your hero or heroes and why?”
(Conor Lamb) “I have to say that one of my heroes was my grandfather, who your dad knew. He was in politics himself in the 60s and 70s., He just grew up very poor, in difficult circumstances, like a lot of people at his time. His parents were from Ireland, and, he signed up for the Navy in World War II and used this thing called the GI Bill to pay for school. And so, I guess, he didn’t have a lot of the same advantages that I had, and he made a lot out of it. And he chose to do public service for a career when he probably could done things to make more money and I always thought that was a really powerful example.”
(Avonews) “What are your favorite hobbies?”
(Conor Lamb) “I like to garden, so I grow vegetables and flowers and things like that here at our house. I love to read, and if you think you consider that a hobby, I love all types of exercise and sports, but lately, a lot of swimming has been my main hobby.”
(Avonews) “What was your favorite subject in school, like throughout high school?”
(Conor Lamb) “Yes, I would say English”
(Avonews) “At what age did you realize that you wanted to pursue politics?”
(Conor Lamb) “I mean I guess 33, you know that was the age I was when I ran. And, I was interested in it before then, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. And I sort of made that decision very quickly when I was 33. So, yeah!”
(Avonews) “What reason or influence really like, made you wanna pursue it?”
(Conor Lamb) “Well, a big part was the influence of my grandfather that I talked about, within the state senator and kind of people in my family were interested in politics as well as all that. And then, I think my experience in the Marine Corps… I was in the Marine Corps, you know they teach you a lot about responsibility and leadership. And that made me think that, you know maybe I could try to bring some of those values into politics as well.”
(Avonews) “In what ways do you think your service to the public helped impact the people of Pennsylvania?”
(Conor Lamb) “I would say during the pandemic, we did a lot of things to help people keep food on the table, help people stay safe at work, and try to get back to work and take care of the people who were getting sick. We really did a lot coming from Washington DC in the different bills that we passed that I think helped Pennsylvania a lot. The biggest thing I worked on locally probably would be the locks and dams on the Ohio River, which are the things that they use to allow ships to pass through and control the water levels of the river, which you would never know it, but it’s actually really important to everyone’s jobs in the economy around here. And it helped get a lot of funding that, which one’s ever gonna know about, but it’s actually important to our local economy.”
(Avonews) “How do you feel that you’ve been able to continue to support the people of Pennsylvania?”
(Conor Lamb) “I serve on a number of boards, which are organizations that are community service oriented. I sort of use my experience in politics to help charities, and community service organizations, better serve the community.”
(Avonews) “I was wondering what your opinion was on how politics have changed and been shaped going into 2025?”
(Conor Lamb) “ Well, I think they’ve changed a lot in part because of social media. I think that’s a huge factor that has made people or is at least made politics a lot more partisan.
And it’s made opinions a lot more extreme than it used to be and so, you know that makes everything harder and sensitive. It kind of drives the two sides apart from each other. It makes people a lot angry at each other… it just makes it more difficult to compromise on things.
And unfortunately, well not unfortunately, it’s a good thing our system was designed to only really work when people are compromising. So if people stop being willing to compromise with each other, the federal government wouldn’t really work all that well anymore. So, you know the outlook heading into 2025 is not great. Just because people’s attitudes on the right and left are pretty extreme and dug in. And we know that Trump, whether you like him or dislike him, tends to bring out the sort of most extreme…of each side. And so it seems like it can be tough for them to get a whole lot done.”
(Avonews) “Could you describe politics in three adjectives?”
(Conor Lamb) “ Tiring, um…, challenging, and maybe sacrificial might be too strong of a word, but you, you give a lot by going into politics. And it also makes it commendable, but, it is something that in no question involves a lot of sacrifice from you and your family.”
(Avonews) “ What was your favorite part about when you were in office?”
(Conor Lamb) “I think it was the chance to, I guess you could even say the honor of you get the chance if you wanna take it to get to know people and what they’re going through…and really be a voice for people who don’t otherwise have a voice.
And I think for someone like me, who feels like I was born very lucky in America, and this country gave me and my family a lot the chance to, you know try to do something for other people like that, it’s really rewarding and you do get some opportunities to do that.”
(Avonews) “Is there any advice you would give to someone who is looking to pursue politics?”
(Conor Lamb) “… the advice that I would give would be to really sit down and think about what makes you wanna go into politics. I always say public service even though it’s politics, should be about serving others in the community. And you should be able to think to yourself like, why do I really wanna do this? Who am I trying to help? What cause am I trying to advance? If it’s just to make yourself more popular or try to sort of climb the wrung of society, honestly, there’s just an easier way to do that. This is that politics is not the best way….and if it truly is, you know help people in need, or, um, you know help the environment, or try to improve healthcare, or to protect people through better criminal justice, or, you know take care of the military, whatever your sort of concerns are. Um, you gotta know those going in, and you gotta really stick to them because when the difficult time comes, and people are criticizing you, and you’re afraid you might lose your next election or something like that. You wanna be able to turn to, the bigger reasons that got you into it other than your own survival to, kind of give you the stamina to keep going.”
