Hugo Gurdon of the Washington Examiner ponders Democrats’ electoral strategy.
Democrat John Fetterman’s sad, stumbling debate performance against Republican Mehmet Oz underlined the fact that his party seeks victory with trickery. It isn’t interested in winning political arguments — that’s difficult — only in winning power.
Ever since Fetterman suffered a stroke two days before the primaries in May, voters reasonably wondered whether he could do the job if elected to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate. Was he impaired, and if so, how badly?
When he finally revealed himself on the prime-time debate stage on Oct. 25, it became clear that Fetterman is seriously impaired and may be getting worse, not better. He began by wishing the audience “goodnight,” and it was downhill from there. Neil Young once said a song of his “starts out slow and then fizzles out altogether.” Fetterman knows the feeling.
As sorry as one may feel for his suffering, it’s vital to consider why it is only now, after half a million have already cast their early ballots, that the public is allowed to assess the candidate who could flip a seat and give the Democrats a majority. The answer is easy: His party regards the electorate as an impediment to be duped, not a sovereign people to be persuaded.
A parade of left-liberal opinion leaders poured onto social media to denounce the “ablest” bigotry of expecting the Democrat to show himself competent. They were enraged that their man had been found out and could now lose them the Senate.
Fetterman was hidden for months, just as Joe Biden was in 2020, concealing the truth while voters were asked to put their trust in him. Biden ran as a centrist alternative to leftist Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Once voters had been conned and the Democrat was safely in the White House, Biden embraced every extreme policy pressed on him.
