The Patriot Post® · The Dems' Debate Disaster
The morbidly curious folks who tuned in to last night’s Pennsylvania Senate debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz certainly got what they wanted. Fetterman began his remarks by saying “good night,” and it went downhill from there.
Watching the fiasco that unfolded was unsettling because it drove home the message that Democrats will do anything — ANYTHING — in the service of political power. Just as Jill Biden and James Clyburn and the Democrat establishment pushed an obviously unwell Joe Biden on the nation in 2020 solely because they saw him as their best chance to unseat Donald Trump, so too are the Democrats committed to dragging an embarrassingly disabled John Fetterman across the finish line to fill a Senate seat that the party believes it desperately needs.
What we saw last night was a case of medical malpractice. As Power Line’s Scott Johnson put it: “The debate revealed Dr. Clifford Chen to be a fraud. According to Chen’s doctor’s note released this week by the Fetterman campaign, ‘Fetterman spoke intelligently without cognitive deficits’ and his ‘speech is normal.’ I score that 0 for 2.”
Dude should have his medical license revoked.
One watched Fetterman struggle to answer simple questions like one watches a serious car crash — with a subtle sense of shame. But the real shame must be reserved for the Democrats who shoved him out there last night and for Fetterman’s wife, Gisele, who, like Jill Biden before her, could’ve spared her unfit husband and put a stop to all this.
All of them — from Twitter trolls to Democrat apparatchiks to Leftmedia talkingheads to Gisele Fetterman herself — owe NBC’s Dasha Burns an apology. Burns, who interviewed Fetterman a couple of weeks ago, reported the sad truth about his condition, and the Left savaged her for it.
As for the toughest, most humiliating job in America last night, that belonged to Fetterman’s campaign staff — especially the ones who had this to say to the media after the debacle: “We are thrilled with John’s performance. He did remarkably well tonight — especially when you consider that he’s still recovering from a stroke and was working off of delayed captions filled with errors.”
If your hole card is a complaint about the quality of the giant TV monitor your guy was allowed to read from during the debate, you’re better off just throwing ‘em in.
Or were they really “thrilled” by Fetterman’s painful response to a simple question about his fracking flip-flop?
The moment John Fetterman lost the PA Senate race pic.twitter.com/P4KeExntFL
— Jesse Hunt (@JJHunt10) October 26, 2022
Fetterman couldn’t even handle the softballs. Asked about how he’d make college tuition more affordable, he spit out this incoherent word salad: “I, I just believe, I just making it that much more, it, it, it, it costs too much, and I believe providing the resources to, to reduce the tuition allow families to be able to afford it.”
Joe Biden has set an extremely low bar for fitness for office, and yet John Fetterman somehow managed to get beneath it. If, after that sad performance, Pennsylvanians still send this man to the Senate for six long years, we in the other 49 should commit to booting the Keystone State from the union.
“The good guys and the bad guys,” said Unity Joe at a rally in Philly last Thursday. “We’ve got to win. John’s got to win.”
No, Joe, he doesn’t. The only thing 53-year-old John Fetterman needs to do is focus on regaining his health. And the Senate isn’t the place for that.
Fetterman, though, wasn’t the only candidate who had a tough time last night. Elsewhere in Democrat debate debacles, New York Governor Kathy Hochul squared off against Republican challenger Lee Zeldin in, sadly, the only such event of the campaign. And she got her clock cleaned. As columnist Michael Godwin writes:
Zeldin did Tuesday what he has done for months — doggedly fault the incumbent and offer big plans for big reforms, especially on matters of crime, taxes, energy policy and spending cuts. He also was effective in hitting her on the outrageous pay-to-play pattern that is undeniable.
By contrast, Hochul has barely campaigned, foolishly taking victory for granted because of her party label, and her rust was apparent. She also had agreed to only a single debate in the primary and, as she did then, came stuffed with packaged comeback lines but few promises.
Crime, especially, has been a key issue for Zeldin, as it clearly is for New Yorkers across the political spectrum. The haymaker below was typical for the Long Island congressman:
Unfortunately, Kathy Hochul believes that the only crimes that are being committed are these crimes with guns. And you have people who are afraid of being pushed in front of oncoming subway cars. They’re being stabbed, beaten to death on the street with hammers.
Go talk to the Asian-American community and how it’s impacted them with the loss of lives, Jewish people targeted with raw, violent anti-Semitism on our streets. It just happened, yet again. We need to be talking about all of these other crimes, but instead Kathy Hochul is too busy patting herself on the back.
At one point, Zeldin accused Hochul of ignoring the state’s “crime emergency,” which she dismissed as a political scare tactic. “Anyone who commits a crime under our laws, especially with the change they made to bail, has consequences,” she said. “I don’t know why that’s so important to you.”
Got that? There are “consequences” for violent criminals in New York, she’ll have us know. And besides, Shut up, she explained.
No wonder folks are fleeing the Empire State in droves. It was a let-'em-eat-cake moment for beleaguered New Yorkers who are sick of Hochul’s criminal-friendly governance. Let’s hope they were paying attention.
Speaking of blue-state governors on the ropes, last night also saw the second and final debate between Michigan Governor Gretchen “Big Gretch” Whitmer and Republican challenger Tudor Dixon. And just as it happened in New York, a defensive incumbent got clobbered by a well-prepared opponent with an excellent command of the issues.
From inflation to tax relief to energy affordability to car-insurance reform to poor-performing schools to the incumbent’s totalitarian approach during COVID-19, Dixon hit Whitmer hard and often. If you have a spare hour, you might check out her performance:
Throughout the debate, the challenger took the fight to the incumbent. More important, though, Dixon — a businesswoman, breast cancer survivor, and mother of four who, prior to the debates, was virtually unknown to many Michiganders outside the western part of the state — has given voters a clear and compelling alternative to Whitmer.
Indeed, Dixon has been steadily closing the gap in statewide polls, and Trafalgar now has the two of them in a dead heat. And Whitmer, who comes across as an entitled and often petulant governor, may have worn out her welcome.
“We were able to call out the governor on her record,” Dixon told reporters after last night’s debate. “And she didn’t seem to have many answers.”
We’re sensing a pattern here: Democrats don’t like to debate. And that’s all the more reason to hold their feet to the fire — and all the more reason that those who are afraid to stand before the voters should be disqualified from holding office.