By Jim Geraghty
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Pennsylvanians will not have a problem with John
Fetterman because he had a stroke. They will have a problem with John Fetterman
because he, his wife, his campaign, and his party were not honest with the
state’s voters about his true condition and recovery until it could no longer be
hidden last night. As I wrote yesterday, “Delivering a version of your stump
speech before an adoring crowd is different, and easier, than answering
questions with time limits.”
When Pennsylvania Democrats insist that a candidate who
suffered a life-threatening stroke in May is recovering well and “has no work
restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” that candidate must look
and sound fine to prove they’re telling the truth. Last night, in the lone
debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race, John Fetterman looked and sounded very,
very far from fine. But you can judge for yourself by watching the whole debate here.
I expected Fetterman’s debate performance to be a
Rorschach test, with Democrats insisting that he was fine and hand-waving away
any problems, and Republicans pointing to every verbal misstep, pause, or oddly
worded answer. But by the end of the hour, there was little debate, no pun
intended. John Fetterman’s ability to hear, understand, process information,
and speak appears to still be severely impacted by his stroke. Perhaps the
worst moment of the night came when one of the moderators asked him
about a statement he made in 2018 opposing fracking, and how he could square
that past stance with his current claim that he always supported fracking.
After a long pause, presumably from reading the moderator’s question from the
monitor, Fetterman said, “I, I, I do support fracking and . . .” and then for a
moment, Fetterman’s head shook, and his mouth moved, but no words came out.
Then he picked up again: “I don’t . . . I don’t. I support fracking, and I
stand, and I do support fracking.” With everyone watching likely mortified and
embarrassed to watch Fetterman struggle to finish the sentence, the moderator
mercifully moved on to the next question.
Joe Scarborough: “John Fetterman’s ability to communicate
is seriously impaired. Pennsylvania voters will be talking about this obvious
fact even if many in the media will not.”
Charlotte Alter, senior correspondent for Time magazine: “I
spoke to Fetterman recently, and I expected him to be very bad tonight. But he
was much, much worse than I expected (and much worse than in our one-on-one
conversation.)”
Politico: “John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz sparred over
abortion, fracking and other hot-button issues during their Senate debate
Tuesday night, with the Democrat who suffered a stroke more than five months
ago struggling at times to effectively communicate — missing words, pausing
awkwardly and speaking haltingly.” Their Playbook newsletter’s first line this morning: “John
Fetterman struggled to effectively communicate during his one and only Senate
debate with Mehmet Oz Tuesday in Harrisburg. . . . Fetterman failed to meet
even the low expectations his own campaign set for him Monday in a memo that predicted ‘awkward pauses, missing some
words, and mushing other words together” as well as “temporary
miscommunications at times.’”
An even more devastating assessment came a few lines
farther down: “The plain fact is that Fetterman was not capable of
debating Oz.”
Multiple sources wondered why
Fetterman agreed to debate when he clearly wasn’t ready. Fetterman struggled at
times to respond to the moderators’ questions, even with the assistance of a
closed captioning device. “Why the hell did Fetterman agree to this?” one Democratic
lawmaker and Fetterman backer told Axios. “This will obviously raise more
questions than answers about John’s health.”
The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake:
It was a rough night. . . .
Fetterman was halting, in keeping with his recent public performances,
including an NBC News interview. He began by saying ‘Good night,’
rather than ‘Good evening.’ He often started a thought and shifted course
without finishing it. He used the wrong words. He mostly tried to play it safe
by sticking to boilerplate issue positions rather than going in-depth on
policies. When it came to his health, he was given two chances to commit to
releasing fuller medical records, and he demurred both times, arguing that his
presence and his doctors’ say-so should be good enough for voters.
The former Braddock mayor and
current lieutenant governor spoke haltingly at times, had difficulty stringing
words together and mispronounced words in some instances during the hour-long,
rapid-fire debate. Mr. Fetterman also said he wouldn’t release his full medical
records for the sake of transparency, as Mr. Oz and other Republicans have
demanded.
CNN:
The Fetterman campaign went to
great lengths to avoid debating — until the criticism from editorial boards,
the Oz campaign and others became too untenable to keep resisting. After
watching the debate in Harrisburg, even though Fetterman’s speech has shown
signs of considerable improvement with every passing week since his May stroke,
it’s an open question whether it was a wise decision to put him on the stage
with Oz. It was, at many points, difficult to watch. Most, if not all,
Democrats will almost certainly give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s an
open question whether voters will.
You may recall Chris Stirewalt from his old Fox News
days, or his current work over at The Dispatch. He was in the
studio as an analyst for NewsNation last night, and I think he spoke for many when he articulated a sense of
anger at the people around John Fetterman:
“My heart really went out to John
Fetterman as he struggled, watching as he tried to answer that question about
his flip flop on fracking was heartbreaking,” Stirewalt said.
As he continued watching the
debate, Stirewalt said he felt it was “irresponsible” for Democrats and
Fetterman’s family to allow him to proceed in the general election.
“Democrats had another candidate.
They had Conor Lamb, a congressman from western Pennsylvania, who I promise
would be ahead in this race. They insisted that Fetterman had to march on. He
had the stroke before the primary, that he had to stay in the primary, that he
had to go through and do this. What made it even sadder for me was that the
argument behind Fetterman’s whole candidacy was that Conor Lamb was too
moderate, too squishy, not going to stand up for hardcore progressive
principles. I watched John Fetterman struggle to try to flip flop,” Stirewalt
said.
And this isn’t even getting to the assessments of the
debate from Rich, Charlie, or Michael Brendan Dougherty.
Considering Fetterman’s struggling debate performance,
what are we to make of that letter from Dr. Clifford Chen declaring that,
“Overall, Lt. Gov. Fetterman is well and shows strong commitment to maintaining
good fitness and health practices. He has no work restrictions and can work
full duty in public office”? Is it that how a person looks in a doctor’s office
— taking deep breaths and having their blood pressure measured — doesn’t
reflect how they’ll look and sound on a debate stage, attempting to answer
questions and lay out a policy agenda?
Allow me to offer a controversial theory: A lot of
Democratic Party candidates and strategists have bad judgment because they’ve
grown used to a usually friendly media bailing them out of the consequences of
their bad decisions. In light of last night, the decision-making of Fetterman
and his campaign seems absurd — as MBD aptly summarized, “John Fetterman should not have
been on a debate stage tonight. He should be at home, recovering from his
stroke.”
What we’re seeing in Pennsylvania is uncomfortably close
to the concept of Weekend at Bernie’s, which was funny because it
was imaginary; a real-life attempt to fool people into believing a corpse is
alive would be horrifyingly macabre. Remember, Fetterman had his stroke the Friday before the
primary election, and his first statement, issued Sunday, declared that, “The good
news is I’m feeling much better, and the doctors tell me I didn’t suffer any
cognitive damage. I’m well on my way to a full recovery.” His campaign has been
lying about how well his recovery was going the whole time.
A campaign does not attempt to fool people into believing
that a severe-stroke victim is fine unless it’s convinced that the overwhelming
majority of media in the state will be its ally and abandon their traditional
role as watchdogs. The people around Fetterman are off their rockers, stupid,
or both.
Oh, by the way, remember last week, when some guy in the Washington Post pointed
out that Democrats had their own share of subpar candidates who were likely to
blow winnable races? Do Pennsylvania Democrats look wise for sticking with
Fetterman right now, instead of switching to either of Fetterman’s rivals in
the primary — Representative Conor Lamb or state representative Malcolm
Kenyatta? How about Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs? Does she look
shrewd for refusing to debate GOP rival Kari Lake? Does Wisconsin’s lieutenant
governor Mandela Barnes look like a sensible choice to run for Senate in a
purple-ish state in a GOP wave year? Does running Beto O’Rourke and Stacey
Abrams for governor in southern, GOP-leaning states again look astute, or are
they sucking up grassroots donation money that could be more wisely spent
elsewhere?
I don’t know that Democratic candidates or campaign
strategists consciously think, “Oh, we’ll be fine, the media is on our side and
will cover for us.” I think they just get used to having the consequences of
every mistake and dumb decision mitigated by generous media coverage. They walk
around with the wind constantly at their backs, convinced that they are wiser
and better at their jobs than they really are. And when that wind at their
backs stops blowing, they’re stunned — suddenly everything is much harder.
Lamb and Kenyatta should be spitting hot fire at the
Pennsylvania state Democratic Party this morning.
ADDENDUM: Here’s a sign that we’re shifting
from “red wave” territory to “red tsunami” territory, from Politico:
Democrats are adding millions in
television spending to boost Sen. Patty Murray, a sign that the party is
employing a take-no-chances approach even in solidly blue Washington state. . .
.
The national political environment
currently favors Republicans in the midterms, and the fact that Democrats are
spending to shore up an incumbent in a solidly blue state is not a good sign
for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment