Micah Lasher, Child Magician

I’m meeting with Micah Lasher at a diner on the Upper West Side. The last time I saw him was also at an Upper West Side diner. That was 32 years ago. He was 12. I was 22. He was interviewing me for a job. Lasher is running for Congress in the June 23 Democratic primary for the smallest, richest, most educated district in the country, the one that Jerrold Nadler is leaving after 34 years. New York’s Twelfth District jaggedly stretches all the way across Manhattan from the top of Central Park down to 12th Street. It is so liberal that whoever wins the primary will likely get to keep the seat as long as they want. It’s so rich that whoever wins will have considerable power in Congress, thanks to Manhattanites’ ability to donate to other campaigns.In his Yankees jacket over a white button-down, Lasher doesn’t look that different than the last time I saw him, which is strange because he has since undergone puberty. He still has a boyish, earnest, Michael Cera energy. He has three kids and is married to a finance executive now, but he still lives in a building with his mom. When the waitress comes over, Lasher politely orders cottage cheese, strawberries, blueberries, two eggs sunny-side up, and an orange juice. The orange juice, so high in sugar, seems suspiciously wild.Lasher has spent his entire life in Manhattan, except for a semester at NYU spent in London, where he roomed with the comedian Aziz Ansari. He’s also spent his entire career in politics. At 15, while he was at Stuyvesant High School, he worked on a state assembly member’s campaign for Manhattan borough president. At 20, he helped start the successful political-consulting firm SKDK. This led to policy jobs with Nadler, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Governor Kathy Hochul, and to his current gig in the assembly. But I worked for Lasher long before he turned 15.[Jonathan Chait: Please, not another Kennedy]I now live 3,000 miles away and don’t have any stake in this race, but it’s one of the most interesting pr