Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, feels his party has a "likability problem" and elected officials need to talk like normal people instead of MSNBC hosts.
Maloney spoke to The New York Times’ editorial board last month for an interview published over the weekend when the paper’s same editorial board endorsed him for re-election.
Maloney was asked by Times deputy opinion editor Patrick Healy if elected officials from the Democratic Party are sometimes out of step with voters.
"I’m wondering about immigration, or L.G.B.T.Q. rights, or another issue," Healy specified. "What do you see? Where do you see them out of sync, out of step?"
Maloney responded, "Well, the way I’ve often put this to my colleagues is to say, if our positions and our policies are so popular, why don’t they like us more? That is a good question."
Maloney was asked what his answer to that would be, and the DCCC chair said people didn't have "enough time to understand" the solutions Democrats were providing.
"And you’ll find broad agreement in our caucus, from the conservative Democrats to the most progressive, that we have a likability problem," he said. "My answer to that is that we move really fast, and we are really passionate about the solutions we want to bring. And we sometimes don’t give people enough time to understand what we’re doing and to bring them along."
Maloney then said Democrats sometimes are "really clear on our own priorities" but don’t ask about the priorities of the people they represent.
"If I’ve had any success in the Trump district, it’s because I try to take seriously the priorities of the people I represent, not just tell them about my own," Maloney said. "So for example, Democrats could be much more intentional about our work in rural areas, with veterans, with farmers, with people in communities that have not benefited from the global economy. We could talk like human beings, we could build a relationship with voters."
Maloney also said Democrats "could be more comfortable on the factory floor, or at least as comfortable on the factory floor as we are in the faculty lounge."
"I think that most of the voters that we ask about this think that we’re out of touch, they think we’re elitist, we think we are better than they are. And they don’t like it," Maloney said. "And we have a likability problem."
Healey then asked Maloney, whose current district voted narrowly for Donald Trump in 2016, for an example of a Democratic phrase that doesn’t sound authentic.
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"All of them," he said before elaborating with a shot at MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.
"I mean, listen, I don’t know — anything that comes out of Chris Hayes’s mouth. I mean, the fact is, is that if you listen to the way people speak on our cable news channels — I love Chris Hayes — but the point is, if you listen to the way we talk and communicate, it is not the way my voters talk. It’s not the way my neighbors talk, it’s not the way my family talks," Maloney said. "If I’m talking to a sheet metal worker in Pine Bush, he doesn’t talk about communities of color, he doesn’t use the word ‘rubric.' He doesn’t talk about — the first-generation folks working in Newburgh don’t use the word ‘Latinx.’ Most people don’t understand who are cisgender, why they need to put pronouns on their email signature."
Maloney is running in the recently redrawn district of northern New York City suburbs that no longer includes White Plains and Dobbs Ferry. He is set to face challenger state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi.
