Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is headed to the United States Senate. The alarmingly health-challenged Pennsylvania Democrat will now take his place alongside the Honorable Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who is reportedly in the throes of grave cognitive decline at the age of 89. Americans are fully aware of the sad condition of their president. Joe Biden shows signs of significant mental impairment on a seemingly daily basis.
The Nov. 8 midterm elections have concluded, and pundits and big-box media outlets are expending copious amounts of air huffing about how “candidate quality matters.” In the uber-partisan Democrat worldview of today, one which firmly believes that to vote Republican is to wage war on democracy, this is clearly not the case.
Magic Letter Saves Fetterman
Nov. 8 confirmed again what the 2020 presidential election already proved. Democrat voters are so locked into their “blue good, red bad” beliefs that they will vote for anyone with a D next to their name, no matter how unfit for office the person may appear to be. Fetterman’s opponent, Mehmet Oz, demonstrated that GOP voters are not as pliable.
Oz was a markedly unlikable candidate, with many grassroots red supporters not even considering him a Republican. Oprah Winfrey’s TV celebrity doctor swooped in from New Jersey with money and a name, and thought that would be enough to punch his ticket to Washington. Once again, Republican voters who desire genuine political change were taken for granted. The result: An enthusiasm gap was baked into the Oz campaign from day one of the general election. This ultimately sealed his fate against Fetterman.
There are other factors at work to be sure. Republicans must face the fact that Pennsylvania is now a blue state. It is part of a Northeast Corridor running from Boston to Northern Virginia that is highly urban in temperament. Democrats own that kind of voter.
That said, Fetterman was a dream rival for any Republican. His palpable difficulties in communicating were put on display for the whole country to see in a disastrous debate performance two weeks before the election. This came coupled with a radical record underscored by an extreme devotion to going soft on crime as part of a specific “social justice” agenda. That Mehmet Oz could not take advantage of these two pocket aces speaks volumes as to how lacking he was as a major-party U.S. Senate nominee.
Establishment foes are eager to pin the blame for the Oz catastrophe on former President Donald Trump. Trump did endorse Oz, and he deserves a share of the criticism. But he did so late in the primary season. The former president did not cultivate Oz in the first place; others did.
Their Kind of Candidate
“It’s a good sign for the Republican Party that somebody of his standing and stature would want to run under the Republican banner,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was quoted by Politico as saying way back on Dec. 3. “He’s got an incredible background and personal story. It’s good news for the Republican Party, and I think he’d be very competitive.”
John Fetterman (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
“It’s great to have someone who certainly is a game-changer the very first moment,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said at that same time. “Who doesn’t love a guy that’s got 100 percent name ID and a whole bunch of money?”
The last sentence says it all. This is what D.C.-entombed Republicans think wins elections. It may have just cost the party the Senate.
Cramer has been climbing the party ladder for more than three decades. He served as chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party in 1991. Cramer was one of 19 Republican senators who voted to pass Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill in Nov. 2021. Graham has been in Congress since 1995, first serving in the House until graduating to the Senate in January 2003. What they saw in Oz is a reflection of their lengthy tenures as careerist politicians.
And then there is Fox News host Sean Hannity. Oz officially announced his candidacy on Nov. 30, and then appeared on Hannity’s show that same evening. Hannity touted the “huge announcement” coming from Oz one night earlier. “Hint: think midterm election,” he teased.
Oz was a frequent Hannity guest during the coronavirus pandemic, and the Fox News veteran was not shy in gushing over him. “Dr. Oz, I have to tell you, I have become such a big fan of yours,” Hannity told Oz during a March 2020 appearance. “You do a great service every day, and I’ve got to give you a lot of props for this.”
Trump endorsed Oz out of a perception that the choice was between him and hedge-fund multi-millionaire David McCormick. McCormick, the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, aggressively courted Trump. He was denied the nod due to his glaring globalist resume. Among other things, Bridgewater manages state funds for the bloody communist regime in China.
Kathy Barnette (Photo by Caroline Gutman/Getty Images)
There was a third option in populist outsider candidate Kathy Barnette, and she surged in the closing days of the race. But while Trump rejected her with praise, Hannity ruthlessly attacked in defense of Oz. He even resorted to using the Democrat theme of Jan. 6 as an “insurrection” as a weapon against her.
“Look at your screen. Here is Barnette marching alongside – this just broke today – radical Proud Boys during January 6,” Hannity told Fox viewers on May 16, the day before the GOP primary. “She claims she had no idea who they were and that she didn’t breach the Capitol.”
Oz went on to win the primary, edging out McCormick. Barnette finished third. Fast forward some six months, and the man championed by Hannity, Graham, and Cramer could not defeat the weakest candidate by far running in any of the several showcase races seen as crucial to deciding control of Congress.