My Opinion on the Fetterman-Oz Pennsylvania Senate Race

 

 

 

“It just goes to show how excruciatingly awful a candidate Mehmet Oz is that he’s neck-a-neck in a tight race with a Democratic candidate who most closely resembles Lurch from ‘The Munsters,’ carrying the full baggage of high inflation, linked to an unpopular president, apparently lacks a sense of humor, struggles to form coherent sentences, and looks like he just came from the gym. Yeah, Oz is basically a heaping pile of crudite.”

Unfortunately, I can’t vote in Pennsylvania, even though I have close ties to the Keystone State.

My first real job right out of college was working for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and later in the office of Sen. John Heinz, a maverick Republican from Pennsylvania. Everyone knows the famous Heinz family name, perhaps best known as the maker of the world’s best-selling ketchup. Sen. Heinz was a good Republican and, if I may say so, a great leader and representative. I was only a low-level staffer, but Sen. Heinz always treated his people with genuine kindness and concern. He spent much of his childhood growing up in San Francisco, which likely instilled a more tolerant attitude toward others. He was even labeled a “liberal Republican,” a tag that would be unthinkable in today’s political climate. Sen. Heinz died in a plane crash about five years after I worked in his office. He was only 52. Who knows what he might have gone on to accomplish had he lived?

When you work on The Hill, one of the very first things you learn is the political landscape of the constituents you serve. I’d never known much about Pennsylvania prior to that and could name perhaps only a few major cities. But after answering constituent mails for months, you quickly begin to know the small towns and zip codes of every county. When they say “all politics is local,” that’s very true — even at the national level.

Thirty years later, I did some work in Pennsylvania that required me to be licensed at the state level. I even paid Pennsylvania state taxes. That’s as close as I ever got to becoming a Pennsylvania resident and voter.

This year’s PA Senate race should have been decided a long time ago, and by that I mean, one of the candidates should have enjoyed a big lead by now. Instead, it’s now considered a toss-up. Pennsylvania’s election result could even be the tipping point for a Republican majority. To say this state is critical (especially for Democrats) would be an understatement. Democrats absolutely *must* win in the Fetterman-Oz race to have any reasonable shot of keeping a fragile “50-50 “majority” (with the VP casting deciding votes in the Senate).

Mehmet Oz should be up in this race by 5-10 points, maybe more, but he’s not (some polls do have him ahead now). First of all, this is a Senate seat already held by a moderate Republican, who is retiring (real reason — Sen. Pat Toomey is sick of what his party and national politics have become–incumbent Senators don’t just “retire” out of the blue at age 60). Second, given the customary voter backlash against the party in power (make that wishy-washy gullible rudderless independent morons who decide many elections now), turnout and passion for the party perceived as being for “change” are always higher. On average, the “ruling party” averages losing 4 Senate seats and 28 House seats in the midterms (those averages are for every midterm election since FDR). So, Democrats picking up a seat in this state, in this political climate, given the pessimistic history is an undeniable outlier. Fetterman shouldn’t even be close in this race.

Now, let’s address the giant elephant in the room. That’s John Fetterman’s health. More precisely, it’s his mental fitness. I watched Fetterman closely before his stroke. He was a frequent guest on talk shows, and even though he held the office of Lt. Gov. (since 2019), which is a relatively low-profile job, I could tell instantly that Fetterman was going places, which meant higher up the political ladder. Fetterman’s quirky working-class mannerisms and way of speaking were precisely what Democrats have been missing for a long time. We needed more Fetterman’s. He was an effective counterbalance to the popular perceptions of Democrats as elitists. Side Note: I also liked Fetterman because he was a Bernie Sanders supporter and avowed progressive, which made him a standout among the Democratic establishment.

Then, Fetterman’s stroke happened, and thought to myself– well, there goes that race and seat. Poof. His recovery since then has been slow and certainly has cost him a few points in the polls. His only debate performance was awful, and he’s stumbled numerous times out on the campaign trail. And, as an impartial political analyst, yes I can wear that hat as well, I also believe Fetterman has made a few grave errors in managing his campaign, such as insisting on wearing sweatpants and hoodies most of the time when speaking in public. That’s certainly authentic, but as an old-fashioned traditionalist, that’s also a major turn-off to some people. If this casual “look” alienates me, you can imagine how impressionable Pennsylvania swing voters might be influenced. The first rule of politics is this: don’t turn off any undecideds, especially with something so dumb.

It just goes to show how excruciatingly awful a candidate Mehmet Oz is that he’s locked neck-a-neck in a tight race running against a Democratic candidate who most closely resembles Lurch from The Munsters, carrying the full baggage of high inflation, linked to an unpopular president, apparently lacks a sense of humor, struggles to form coherent sentences, and looks like he just came from the gym. Yeah, Oz is basically a heaping pile of crudite.

Pennsylvania voters are smarter than most states. I’m convinced of that. They even voted for the late Sen. Arlen Spector multiple times, who spent various periods attached to *both* parties, and re-elected him when he was undergoing years of cancer treatments. They understood that even when Sen. Spector wasn’t 100 percent healthy, and his body and mind were struggling, his voice and his vote were all that really mattered to the lives of average Pennsylvanians. There are some obvious similarities here to Fetterman. Indeed, many of us have encountered friends and family with very real physical challenges, including heart problems and difficulties communicating, at times. Should we totally discount these members of our society? Isn’t that discrimination?

I can’t predict what will happen in the Pennsylvania Senate race, or any other election in 2022. I gave up trying to project what the average voter would do after the miserable failure that was George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, and I pretty much threw up my hands and said okay fuck it, despite all the journals and the writings and the readings and the political science degree. When it comes to the mind of the average voter, I don’t have a clue. I also can’t say if a “Senator Fetterman” would serve a full term. I simply don’t know.

But he’s the obvious pick in a tightly contested race if we want this nation to move forward rather than backward. If John Heinz were alive today, if he wasn’t still holding that Senate seat, I believe he’d be standing right there on the campaign stage next to John Fetterman.

And besides — crudite doesn’t go with ketchup.