In President Biden's increasingly lonely midterm campaign cycle, there's another U.S. Senate candidate from his own party who is refusing to join him for an official event — Pennsylvania's John Fetterman.
The current Lt. Governor won the Keystone State's Democrat primary while in a hospital bed recovering from a stroke that sidelined Fetterman for the opening months of the general election campaign, but now that he's back doing some events — ones that aren't going well as Vespa reported here — he still can't be bothered to appear with the President of the United States in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
The situation mirrors what happened when President Biden visited Ohio earlier this summer and Democrat U.S. Senate Nominee Tim Ryan — currently a member of the U.S. House of Representatives — cited scheduling conflicts as his reason for avoiding being seen with Biden.
Fetterman's campaign sought to tamp down the obvious reaction by saying Fetterman will be at a parade elsewhere in PA at which Biden will also appear, but the two bumping into each other to discuss decriminalizing marijuana at a parade does not compare with appearing on stage with the president.
Fetterman walks Biden tightrope:
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) August 29, 2022
“John will not be at the Wilkes-Barre event with Biden, but he will be marching in the Labor Day parade in (PGH) next week, & he looks forward to talking to the President there about the need to finally decriminalize marijuana.” — Fetterman aide
Fetterman's decision to skip out on Biden's visit some 10 weeks before the midterm general election is puzzling for another reason. Biden's visit to Wilkes-Barre is being billed by the White House as remarks on his "Safer America Plan to further reduce gun crime & save lives" — a topic on which Fetterman just launched a new ad hitting airwaves starting Tuesday.
In the ad, Fetterman attacks his GOP opponent Mehmet Oz for his "Gucci loafers" and then emphasizes his own sleeve tattoos, one arm bearing his home zip code and the other featuring the dates murders took place. "Public safety is why I ran for office," Fetterman says in the ad while wearing his oversized hoodie. "I worked side-by-side with the police," he also says before claiming "we did whatever it took to fund our police." It's unclear if Fetterman's bragging about working "side-by-side" with police includes the time Fetterman pulled a shotgun on a black jogger and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
For a race where Fetterman is supposedly looking at an easy path to victory — if the mainstream media and Democrats are to be believed — why the defensive ad buy while refusing to appear with Biden for an event on the same topic?
While skipping out on Biden's visit and relying on TV ads to get his message out, Fetterman continues to refuse any debates with GOP nominee Mehmet Oz.
Biden, in his Tuesday speech is hoping to make Democrats out to be something they aren't anymore: police-backing law-and-order types amid surging crime that's sending voters to the Republican camp in droves as they watch their communities, families, and businesses get victimized by fearless criminals under lenient Democrat prosecutors.
While Biden is hoping this trip will be about flipping the script on “defund the police,” what it really highlights is House Dems’ inability to agree to fund the police, and Dems like Fetterman’s continued refusal to be near Biden. https://t.co/o9J2mAHVdT
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 30, 2022