Brad Lander Wants To Be New York's Nerd Dad In Congress, And We're All For It!
Making earnest decency cool again.
New York City’s outgoing (in both senses of the word) Comptroller Brad Lander, an ally of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, announced yesterday that he’s running for Congress. Lander was one of the candidates for mayor who cross-endorsed with Mamdani to build an anti-Cuomo (who?) coalition in ranked-choice voting during the primary. They rode CitiBikes together, adorably, and now Mamdani has endorsed Lander’s congressional run.
Lander also made national headlines in June when he was arrested while trying to escort an asylum seeker safely out of the Manhattan federal building, after the government abruptly dismissed his asylum case so they could deport him faster. That incident gets a replay in Lander’s announcement video, to remind voters Lander isn’t afraid of getting in Good Trouble.
As for the announcement itself, it’s freaking delightful, playing up the goofiness and nerdy Jimmy-Stewart earnestness that Lander wants to emphasize. Damn right it opens with cartoon birdies wishing him good morning, and it goes on to quote Fred Rogers, “a man who knew a thing or two about loving their neighbors: ‘Love isn’t a state of perfect caring, it’s an active noun.’” (The New York Post dismissed the line as “awkward”; we think it’s excellent.)
“I know it’s corny,” Lander then adds, “but I love the idea that democracy is just neighbors working together to make our lives in common better.” Dang, what a radical!
As Sarah Vowell noted ages ago, this is how Al Gore should have campaigned, by leaning into the wonkery and his reputation as a smart nerd.
Lander hopes to unseat incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman, who is also pretty liberal, and who was the lead attorney in Trump’s first impeachment, after which Goldman won election in the then-newly drawn 10th District. As you no doubt noticed with that line about “not doing AIPAC’s bidding,” US support for Israel’s war in Gaza is one big difference between Lander and Goldman, who are both Jewish, and it could become a key issue in the primary.
Lander, a self-described liberal Zionist, has criticized Israel’s conduct in the war and called for a cease-fire, while Goldman, who is also Jewish, has defended the country’s right to defend itself against Hamas.
Goldman was among the Democrats who claimed — not very convincingly — that Mamdani hadn’t sufficiently condemned antisemitism by not repudiating strongly enough the protest slogan “globalize the intifada,” a position that Mamdani never supported and never said himself. Goldman said in an October CNN interview, “I've asked him to speak out on that and to condemn that and I frankly haven't really seen him do much on that,” and then Mamdani won the mayoral election anyway.
A very early September poll by Data for Progress found that Goldman could be vulnerable to a challenge from the left, with just 41 percent of 10th District voters saying they’d choose Goldman over a generic “other Democratic candidate.” When Lander was offered as a possible alternative, 52 percent of respondents said they’d go with Lander, and just 33 percent chose Goldman.
That may not mean much with months to go before the June 23 primary, and Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, has an assload of his own money, and solid progressive bona fides as well, like supporting Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, as well as calling for higher taxes on the super-wealthy, including his own family. Both have fought against Trump’s deport-everyone agenda, too; both have protested ICE at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, and Goldman has co-sponsored legislation to protect immigrants from being arrested when they appear for scheduled interviews and hearings.
Let’s hope for a good clean primary campaign, ha ha. With nearly unlimited Republican dark money and online trolling, even if the candidates themselves behave, that wish seems even more wildly sunny than Lander’s announcement video.
[Gothamist / NYP / Politico / Lander For Congress]
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As a New Yorker I have three issues and will vote for whoever addresses them -
1. Fuck ICE
2. Ban helicopters before one crashes into my house
3. Seriously fuck ICE
Brad Lander would be a great name for an astronaut.