Biden on Lamb: ‘This guy gets it’
Former vice president makes pair of campaign stops in 18th District
Former Vice President Joe Biden paid Democratic congressional candidate Conor Lamb the ultimate compliment Tuesday: “He reminds me of my son Beau,”Mr. Biden said, referring to the Delaware attorney generalwho died of cancer in 2015.
“He reminds me of my Beau because with Beau and with Conor, it’s about the other guy,” Mr. Biden said in remarks in a crowded Collier union hall Tuesday afternoon and again in an evening appearance before severalhundred people in a ballroom at Robert Morris Universityin Moon.
Mr. Lamb, 33, is running in a special election Tuesday against Republican Rick Saccone to represent the 18th Congressional District seat vacated by Tim Murphy. Like the late Beau Biden, Mr. Lamb is a former military lawyer with a family legacy in politics: His grandfather was a Democratic leader in the state Legislature. Or as Mr. Biden put it, “Public service is in his blood. It’s all he’s done; thinkabout it.”
Much of Mr. Biden’s two stump speeches were the same, but the audiences were different. In his afternoon appearance at the Carpenters Training Center, Mr. Biden spoke to a group that was mostly male and skewed older. In RMU’s Yorktown Hall, the capacity crowd was made up of more women andyoung people.
The message, however, was consistent.
“This is a son of southwestern Pennsylvania,” said the former vice president and longtime senator from Delaware.