The 2022 Pennsylvania Senate race is not an ideal situation. We have Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has been plagued with a slew of internal issues facing Democratic candidate John Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, who is recovering from a recent stroke.
Just to vent here a little. Yes, I’ve called this race a dumpster fire due to the appalling lack of depth regarding Republican candidates for statewide office. For all his faults, Pat Toomey is the only candidate as of late where concern about electability wasn’t front-and-center. He appealed to enough suburban voters in the Philly collar counties to win his elections. Toomey won Bucks County, one of the holy grail areas to win statewide, and that was all he had to do.
Is it game over in the Keystone State? No, there’s still time to turn things around in Pennsylvania, which has been a cruel mistress to Republicans for the better part of a quarter century, and one lousy debate from Democratic candidate John Fetterman could bring a whole new ballgame. The lieutenant governor is ignoring those calls for a debate with Oz since his campaign stump speeches are akin to a Biden rally regarding incomprehensible half-thoughts peppered with bouts of yelling.
As crime spikes nationwide, Fetterman should probably consider staffing changes since two are convicted murderers. No, I’m not kidding. He has some chain gang hires convicted of robbery and being accessories to murder; their last names are Horton. Yes, we have another ‘Horton’ public relations fiasco involving the Democratic Party. Of course, the brothers, Lee and Dennis Horton have maintained their innocence. Do you remember the running joke in The Shawshank Redemption?
“Everyone is innocent in here—don’t you know that?”
These two are paid staffers on Fetterman’s Senate campaign, which is in keeping with the lieutenant governor’s handling of criminal justice. He’s been open about wanting to empty the prisons in the state. He wants one-third of the prison population released. As lieutenant governor, he chairs the Board of Pardons, and the criteria for recommending commutations were overly charitable and bordering on negligent (via Politico):
Fetterman is meeting with Garland to talk about his crusade to give second chances to prisoners. As lieutenant governor, Fetterman chairs the state’s Board of Pardons, which votes on clemency applications from inmates serving life sentences.
For his predecessors, the role was a throwaway part of the job. Fetterman, on the other hand, has turned it into a cause célèbre and his prime focus as lieutenant governor. In the nearly two decades before he took the helm, the board only held votes on 30 commutation cases and sent just 12 to the governor’s desk for approval. During Fetterman’s first 2½ years as lieutenant governor, the board considered 67 cases and recommended 32 to Wolf. Many of the lifers are men who insist upon their innocence and have been model prisoners, or have faced what criminal justice advocates see as excessive sentencing. Wolf approved 17 of the commutations in 2019 and 2020.
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Fetterman tells him: “Whoever you’re mentoring, whoever you’re talking to—get their shit in yesterday. And I’ll do my best to expedite it as fast as we can because I’m trying to get as many folks out as we can.” He repeatedly stresses the urgency at hand, reminding Garland that his term ends soon: “We have 1.75 years.”
Even for Fetterman, it’s a strikingly unvarnished comment for a politician running for office in a battleground state. And it would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when Democrats went out of their way to embrace law-and-order politics before the criminal justice system was widely recognized as broken.
But that’s exactly why many voters love Fetterman: He’s blunt and unapologetically progressive on the issue of criminal justice reform. It’s also why moderate Democrats fear the GOP could make Fetterman look like a far-left freak in a general election, and why many Republicans think they could crush him. The ominous ads about Fetterman letting loose as many cold-blooded killers as possible write themselves.
Oh, you bet those ads write themselves. Fetterman said openly that he wants to abolish life sentences for those convicted of murder, even appointing a staffer to serve on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons who shares that view.
You need an excellent pivot and pre-packaged response as to why he thinks people who commit first-degree murder shouldn’t spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Should folks like John Wayne Gacy have been released after 30 years—just spitballing a jail sentence here— for the rape and murder of dozens of young men and boys? Should Ted Bundy’s prison time have been the equivalent of a manslaughter charge? Overall, I find it problematic that most voters would support letting those who commit pre-meditated murder out after a few decades. Should serial killers be released after 30 or 40 years? No doubt that certain aspects of the criminal justice system can and should be reformed, especially concerning certain drug offenses and asset forfeiture, but capital murder, John? You need to bring your A-game to explain why a murderer who plotted to kill scores of people and gets caught deserves to be released during his or her (or they/ze/xe) lifetime. We know you can’t because you make Joe Biden sound like a Rhodes Scholar, and that’s why you’re hiding out in the PA state game lands avoiding a debate with Dr. Oz.
As Clay Travis of Outkick said if you’re not healthy enough to debate, you can’t serve as the next US Senator from Pennsylvania. And maybe you shouldn’t because you have two killers on your staff and want to unload murderers out of prisons.
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