PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ! The Fetterman Charade Ends. “The entire Jenga-block tower of the John Fetterman campaign came crashing down last night, as it became painfully, abundantly clear that the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania is still suffering severe effects of his stroke, and the past few months of the candidate’s making ten-to-twelve-minute appearances on the stump have been an elaborate effort to hide those lingering effects. The issue isn’t the stroke; the issue is the dishonesty — and for Pennsylvania Democrats, this is an entirely self-inflicted wound. If the state party had wanted to substitute one of Fetterman’s primary rivals, Representative Conor Lamb or state representative Malcolm Kenyatta, it could have done so.”
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.
And hoping to run out the clock while screaming “ableism!” to any who question Fetterman’s health: It’s “ableist” of a reporter to discuss John Fetterman’s health problems, says his wife.