Democrat Candidate for Pennsylvania Senate Returns to Campaign Trail After Hiding For Months Post-Stroke -- And Shows Signs of Cognitive Impairment

The good news is that he can probably live a mostly normal life.

The bad news is that he cannot live a normal senatorship.

But then, America elected -- or, "elected" -- a basement-hiding dementia patient as "President" so maybe we're just open to mentally impaired leaders now.

Your next Senator, Chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Greg Price @greg_price11

John Fetterman may not be able to speak in complete sentences and also lived off his parents until he was 40 but did you know that Dr. Oz once lived in New Jersey!

Well, I guess he'll go back to living with his parents. Should be minimally disruptive for all of them, at least.

ABC "News" reports on Fetterman's escape from the asylum after suffocating McMurphy.

In front of a crowd nearly triple the anticipated turnout, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, spoke for roughly 11 minutes on Friday in his first public campaign appearance since suffering a stroke in May.

Dressed in a hoodie and flanked by his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, at a convention center in Erie, Fetterman discussed his stroke and threw jabs at his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in front of an energized crowd his campaign said exceeded 1,300 people.

The lieutenant governor briefly paused in the middle of several sentences and sometimes repeated words. In an interview last month with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he said he was working with a speech therapist and insisted he had "nothing to hide" regarding his health.

"Tomorrow is, three months ago, my life could have ended," he said, remembering the moment he said his wife noticed he was having a stroke on the way to a campaign event. "Let me just tell you right now, in front of everyone, Gisele saved my life."

"Tonight, for me, it's about being grateful," he said.

Keeping his remarks light on policy, Fetterman took several shots at Oz, whose campaign has made a daily habit of reminding voters of Fetterman's absence, publicizing a running "Basement Tracker."

The president of the Erie City Council -- who is a Democrat, though ABC "News" hides that from you and pretends she's some kind of nonpartisan official -- claimed she was "impressed" by this halting performance.

Others were less impressed.

...

Bob Nierakto, 81, of Erie, said he was "disappointed" in what he called Fetterman's lack of energy.

"It doesn't matter why he lacked the energy. He just has to have it," he said. "I was looking for the fire, I was looking for the passion, I was looking for the enthusiasm, and I was looking for him to nail it. And he didn't nail it," said Nierakto, adding that he was committed to voting for Fetterman in November.

A Fox News poll from July 28 had the post-stroke, basement-hiding Fetterman up over the Trump-endorsed celebrity candidate Mehmet Oz by eleven points. RCP has it as Fetterman +8.7 on average.

Look, I'm just really, really tired of Trump's Z-list celebrity thing. No one's impressed by Z-list celebrities. They're only marginally impressed by real celebrities, but also think real celebrities don't know anything useful about public policy. (If they did think real celebrities were worth listening to, we'd have outlawed cars and air conditioning and meat 30 years ago.)

But if Carrot Top ever runs for Congress, Trump will endorse him.

posted by Ace at 01:00 PM

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