There are plenty of hot takes making the rounds this morning about the sole debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz. There are good reasons for this to be the case, mostly having to do with the clearly disastrous performance that Fetterman delivered, despite all of the electronic accommodations provided for him as he continues to struggle with the results of the stroke he suffered earlier this year. To his credit, Fetterman did at least try to address the elephant in the room, but even that effort seemed garbled at best. Among the many lowlights of the debate was the moment when John Fetterman said in the space of barely a minute, both of the phrases, “I don’t support fracking at all” and “I’ve always supported fracking.” I could list more such examples, but you can read a more comprehensive list at Townhall if you missed it. What I wanted to focus on this morning, however, is how much of a disservice may have been done to the voters of Pennsylvania by their massive, early mail-in voting program.
Even before Tuesday’s debate between the two men running to represent the Keystone State in the U.S. Senate, Fetterman’s campaign had scrambled to lower expectations for their candidate, though they may not have lowered them enough.
Moderators began with an explanation of how the captioning system required by the Fetterman campaign for their candidate to participate — due to lingering auditory processing issues following Fetterman’s stroke — would work.
But even with the assistance of the captioning system, Fetterman struggled to respond to questions.
When asked about the federal minimum wage, Fetterman struggled to get through his answer that sought to invoke a “living wage,” calling it a “willing wage” and generally fumbling the answer.
There is one glaring reason why last night’s debate was important, but it also may wind up having far less relevance than you might expect otherwise. Pennsylvania began sending out mail-in ballots in September, more than 45 days before the actual election. Thus far, tens if not hundreds of thousands of those ballots have already been sent in. (The exact figures haven’t been tallied yet.)
Why is that important? If you are a regular reader of this site and/or other outlets that focus on political content, none of this information about the Pennsylvania Senate race is likely new to you. Political junkies tend to be up to date on all of the closely-watched races and the major issues that arise with the various candidates. You already knew that John Fetterman’s mental capacities were seriously diminished after his stroke.
But you are in a relatively small minority in that regard. We should keep in mind that there are plenty of people out there, including in Pennsylvania, who do not spend their days glued to the screen watching CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or any other news outlets. Many people have lives of their own to look after and they might be watching a lot more ESPN or the DIY networks or simply ignoring the boob tube entirely and getting out into the fresh air with their families.
Some percentage of those people likely didn’t give much thought to the midterm elections until their ballot showed up in the mail last month. Some of them are people who might have a natural tendency to vote for a Democrat more than a Republican unless they learned of something truly unusual going on in the race. Others might lead in the opposite direction.
How many of those people decided they might as well fill out their ballot and send it back in when it showed up in the mail? How many among that group voted for John Fetterman because he had a “D” after his name but either watched the debate last night or saw the blooper reels from it this morning and are now smacking themselves on the forehead, saying, “Holy cow! Did I vote for that guy? He’s a freaking disaster!”
This is the underlying issue with all of the massive mail-in voting schemes that showed up along with the pandemic and have now been embraced as permanent fixtures, primarily by Democrats. There is always the possibility that new information might arrive at any point in the cycle right up until election day. Yes, we should always view “October surprises” with a critical eye and careful scrutiny, but some of that information still turns out to be valid. And the earlier you vote, the more you isolate yourself from taking in additional information that could impact your final decision.
There may be a lot of voter regret making the rounds in Pennsylvania this morning. But for all of those people who have already mailed in their ballots, it’s too late. The die has been cast and they can’t take it back now.
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