Dem
47
GOP
53
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) first made a name for himself as someone with a blue-collar, progressive, "rebel" image. There was a time when he looked like a possible heir to the mantle of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as both of them were saying a lot of the same things, often in the same way. And Fetterman made sure that voters made the connection, hiring a bunch of Sanders staffers for his Senate campaign and his Senate office.
This image was always a bit of a fiction, given that Fetterman is actually pretty well-to-do, and is also a Harvard graduate with an MBA. And since being elected to the Senate, the Senator has pretty aggressively re-invented himself, a process that really picked up speed in the last week or so. To wit:
It was a totally fascinating meeting. He's a fascinating man, and his wife is lovely. They were both up, and I couldn't be more impressed. He's a commonsense person. He's not liberal or conservative. He's just a commonsense person, which is beautiful. He really was impressive, and I'm glad I got to speak to him. And he loves Pennsylvania, and he loves our country.You simply don't get a review like that from Trump unless you do some serious puckering up.
We are not sure what the Senator's game is. Perhaps he is looking at his reelection bid in 2028 and, having noticed that his home state just elected David McCormick (R-PA), decided he needed to move toward the center. We do not presume to have a better grasp of the dynamics of Pennsylvania politics than Fetterman does. But the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer is pretty dialed-in, and they are not impressed. In an editorial this weekend, they wrote:
Fetterman argues that his openness to working across the aisle shows he is a senator for all Pennsylvanians, but his normalization of Trump is the epitome of a sellout. He, like many corporate leaders and millions of voters, either has a short memory or is delusional.
It wasn't long ago, when Fetterman was running for the Senate, that Trump called him a "radical" and a "Marxist" and made fun of him for wearing hooded sweatshirts...
Apparently, Fetterman is OK with enabling Trump as long as he gets to hold onto his Senate seat. He would do well to remember the old adage: "If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters."
Keep in mind that Senate elections in Pennsylvania are always close. Not only is Fetterman opening up the possibility of a primary challenge from the center-left, but he will also be in trouble in the general if he loses too many votes on his left flank. Maybe he can make those votes up from the center/center-right, though in general, Republicans prefer to vote for an actual Republican, as opposed to a Democrat who sometimes wears Republican clothing.
Alternatively, Fetterman might be trying to position himself for a 2028 presidential bid. If so, then we would use the same word the Inquirer used: delusional. There are going to be a bunch of Democrats running who have very clear lanes; some no-doubt-about-it progressives, some longstanding centrists, etc. These candidates who kind of have one foot in one lane, and one foot in another, never work out. Think Nikki Haley in 2024, or Tulsi Gabbard in 2020. And this is before we consider the fact that Fetterman has had serious health problems, and that any misstatement or stutter or verbal gaffe during a presidential campaign would have people wondering about whether he was fully recovered from his stroke.
Those are, of course, medium-to-long-term considerations. The more immediate lesson here is this: With Fetterman making nice with Trump, and apparently looking to take over as the next Joe Manchin, the Senator's vote is presumably available to the Republicans on tough votes, at least some of the time. (Z)