Salena Zito writes about attacks on a maverick U.S. senator from within his own party.
Sen. John Fetterman‘s (D-PA) mental acuity was just fine to Democrats.
But then he stood up for Israel.
And now, to hear his anonymous staffers moan, you would think he was Joe Biden Part II.
He is not. …
… In short there is nothing wrong with his mental acuity—he had demonstrated that repeatedly, the only thing wrong with him is that as he regained his health his staff could no longer control his message.
Fetterman has always and forever been this guy that is nobody’s guy—he has never earned the endorsement from the Democratic Party for any race he has run in, whether it was his first run for U.S. Senate in a Democratic primary in 2016, his successful primary run against a sitting Democratic lieutenant governor where he made history by defeating him, and in the primary race he won against Conor Lamb for the seat he currently holds.
Fetterman has handled the situation with much more grace than deserved. The motives are suspect at best, seemingly coordinated and designed to take him down. Why? That seems obvious. Fetterman has left the Democratic reservation most importantly over his unapologetic support for Israel, but also over his support for securing the border and his March vote to invoke cloture which help meat the 60 votes necessary to end debate on the Continuing Resolution (CR) and moved it to final passage.
Democrats thought they were getting one thing with Fetterman, they thought they could control him—it is clear they never paid attention to Fetterman before his stroke, they never paid attention to his unique appeal to voters when he defeated Lamb, and they never paid attention to the fact that he goes to the beat of his own drum.
Now that they have, the DC part of the party is trying to oust him, I suspect the voters of Pennsylvania, if he decides to seek reelection, will once again teach DC experts and strategists they still don’t get Pennsylvania.
