Trust me on this, Fetterman is a strong commanding candidate. The man has more street credibility than you are likely to find in PA...
This is a man who moved into Braddock PA and stayed, and was mayor there for 14 years... (For those who aren’t from the Pittsburgh region, lets just say Braddock is a place you avoid and if you can’t you get through it as quickly as possible) I don’t agree with him politically, but he’s a 6’9” and an imposing person. When he’s in the room, you know it. This guy has a record for fighting for and where folks like Oz and McCormick wouldn’t be caught dead in.
The GOP candidates Oz (complete slimeball and carpet bagger empty suit) and McCormick, just a generic GOPe politician, will be absolutely demolished by Fetterman. Neither have a base to build from in PA, and neither have a particularly compelling story to tell or offer... So they are no better than a generic R candidate at best.. Oz in particular is NOT going to play in person, he won’t connect with the blue collar voters in this state at all.
The generic pro forma GOP attacks on D’s aren’t going to land well against Fetterman.
Kathy’s got a story to tell and a fire in her belly, she’ll make people notice her, Oz and McCormick? Not a chance, Fetterman will eat them for lunch. The only way they have a prayer is if the D brand itself is so damaged that any R would win, because Fetterman is a far stronger candidate and will connect better with PA voters than either one of those two.
I am personally hopefully Kathy pulls off the upset Tuesday, we will see.
Nice post. It is good to hear from Boots on the Ground. There are too many armchair political analysts running around who forget that “All Politics are Local.”
PA has a relatively large Republican base, but the middle matters. California has, in terms of raw numbers, an even larger base, but the middle is so small that neither the Republican base or the middle matters.
And I hail from Oregon, which arguably reached this position first. I can remember the last Republican elected governor: Vic Atiyeh, first elected in 1978, and Re-elected in 1982. 49 other states have elected Republicans since then. Besides Atiyeh. Since 1982, statewide Republican winners not named Hatfield and up for re-election worth voting for can, as I understand it, be counted on one finger.
Packwood was for all practical purposes a New Yorker, and Smith was a mild version of Romney, and kin to the Udals and another clan of Mormon Dems. He was Better than Romney and McCain, and perhaps a better man than Packwood, but that isn’t setting the bar low—that is digging a trench and burying it.
Your comments about Fetterman are true. He’s seen as the champion of the blue-collar worker. He’s a Harvard grad. He would have the support of Pittsburghers. I’m afraid the seat is going to the Democrats.