PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

[Rookie Yinzer]

This is crazy yet so very on brand for these Bernie Sanders-lite fake martyr candidates running on rhetoric and no results. 👀

[Morning in Atlas]

At first it was a couple days, then a couple weeks, now at least a month, this is really messed up.

If he's not going to be capable of campaigning then he needs to surrender the nomination and let the state party put Lamb on the ballot.  The sooner he does this, the sooner Lamb can build a campaign and we can put this mess behind us.  And I say this as someone who's not even particularly enthusiastic about Lamb as a statewide candidate since he didn't seem very good at the gig during the primary.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but the news only keeps getting worse, never better.  Let's not hand Oz the win for free just because we got too attached to a particular nominee who ended up incapacitated for the entire campaign.

It's funny how the only ones concern trolling about Fetterman are corporate "Democrats" who didn't like the result of the primary. Sure, these people "might not be crazy" about Lamb, but if they were in PA, they'd vote for him because they'd agree with his policies more. They don't care about Fetterman's health. They don't care about the Senate seat or what's best for the country or the party. They care about stopping a candidate who they see as too far left.

Don't we remember remember when Fetterman was "lazy" and "DOA" and Lamb was the better nominee because his campaign wasn't in gear for months? When OC, the great prognosticator, was the only one who believed in him? When even I, the biggest Fetterman hack on this site, was worried? And then, he kicked his campaign into overdrive and won the primary. Overwhelmingly, in fact.

Of course, he takes a month-long break to make sure he's ready for an intensive campaign and Blue MAGA starts plotting to steal the nomination from us. The concern trolls come back out of the woodwork, the calls to drop out and step aside for their corporate-leaning Democrat that the good people of Pennsylvania rejected echo, and the more radical ones opt to force the overwhelming Democratic nominee off the ballot. We're all worse for it except Oz.

If the MAGAcrats want to pull a January 6th, they're more than free to do so. Just don't be surprised when Oz wins and we don't turn out to support you.

[Morning in Atlas]

This is crazy yet so very on brand for these Bernie Sanders-lite fake martyr candidates running on rhetoric and no results. 👀

You unironically support Mehmet Oz. You don't get a voice in this discussion.

[GoTfan]

This is crazy yet so very on brand for these Bernie Sanders-lite fake martyr candidates running on rhetoric and no results. 👀

How many counties did Lamb win?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Yvan someone explain how it is at all consequential for Fetterman to be out even until august? Most campaigning doesn’t even matter until the last few months

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Yvan someone explain how it is at all consequential for Fetterman to be out even until august? Most campaigning doesn’t even matter until the last few months

Plus he is not a literal quack TV doctor and has high name rec with a bipartisan electorate...

[Morning in Atlas]

Yvan someone explain how it is at all consequential for Fetterman to be out even until august? Most campaigning doesn’t even matter until the last few months

They know it isn't. They just want to overturn a primary and install their candidate.

[GALeftist]

Not saying he didn't. Saying he's made no explicit effort to build bridges / establish trust with black voters, specifically - a critical Dem demographic of course and a group whose turnout rate in November could win or lose Fetterman the election. He doesn't spend much time speaking on issues of specific importance to black constituencies, either. Basically just seems like he doesn't care.

Very late to this but how are we measuring black outreach here if not through performance in the primary? Just intuition?

Also I do find it somewhat amusing how online centrists went from (rather confusingly) being more rabidly opposed to Fetterman than perhaps any other candidate this cycle to "oh, he's actually a centrist so who cares" after Lamb got creamed, and now that they smell blood in the water they're trying to overturn the primary. The primary is over, it's time to move on and support the nominee.

[Xing]

I'm sure that people who are talking about replacing Fetterman with Lamb were strongly considering replacing Clinton with Sanders in September 2016.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I'm sure that people who are talking about replacing Fetterman with Lamb were strongly considering replacing Clinton with Sanders in September 2016.

Clinton got pneumonia for a few days and was pretty clear regarding her health status and progress towards recovery.  She famously took an awkward little walk outside her daughter's apartment that same day just to quell malicious speculation from the press.

Fetterman has disappeared for weeks, provided very little clarity regarding his health status, and not given any clear timeline regarding his return.  And his health problems are far more concerning and permanent than Clinton's bout with pneumonia.

So this is a false equivalence.  But for the record, if Clinton had suffered a stroke and been incapacitated from the campaign trail for months, and provided little to no information regarding her recovery, I would have considered that a huge emergency and been on board with her potentially being replaced (although preferably with Biden, Booker, Warren, or someone else with better electoral prospects than Sanders).

I don't think Fetterman is a huge emergency yet, but if his return date starts shifting into August/September, and we still haven't even seen him, I think that's a perfectly valid thing to consider as an electoral emergency.

[Meatball Ron]

Not saying he didn't. Saying he's made no explicit effort to build bridges / establish trust with black voters, specifically - a critical Dem demographic of course and a group whose turnout rate in November could win or lose Fetterman the election. He doesn't spend much time speaking on issues of specific importance to black constituencies, either. Basically just seems like he doesn't care.

Very late to this but how are we measuring black outreach here if not through performance in the primary? Just intuition?

Also I do find it somewhat amusing how online centrists went from (rather confusingly) being more rabidly opposed to Fetterman than perhaps any other candidate this cycle to "oh, he's actually a centrist so who cares" after Lamb got creamed, and now that they smell blood in the water they're trying to overturn the primary. The primary is over, it's time to move on and support the nominee.

To your first paragraph - he probably won the black vote in PA overall just because his margin was so big generally / didn't have formidable competition, but if you look at the precinct level in Philly - he definitely came in third in a bunch of the heavily black precincts (I am not going to pull the exact data for you. You can go on Twitter and find the relevant maps; I don't really care if you believe me or not). Also would tack on the big disclaimer that you can't really extrapolate primary results to general election turnout. But beyond actual primary results, no, it's not just "intuition." Look at his platform, his speeches, his advertisements, etc. He isn't talking about racial justice. He isn't talking about police reform. He isn't even really talking about voting rights. He's talking about weed and climate change and populist economic / class issues. All worthy topics, of course, but he just pretty clearly isn't making an effort with black voters specifically - which is important for ANY candidate in a state where black turnout can make the difference between winning or losing, but particularly for Fetterman who had a high profile racial incident and is distrusted by at least portions of the black community. He should be going to black churches, etc. Ideally he would give a mea culpa apology speech and walk back his prior lack of remorse / dismissiveness of the jogger incident, but I suspect he's too egotistical to do that.

To your second paragraph - I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm certainly not doing that? As in, I am not a centrist, nor have I called Fetterman a centrist, nor am I trying to overturn the primary. Perhaps some people are doing that, but the remark feels completely out of place in this specific post / this response to my post. I agree it is time to support the nominee. I am not relitigating the primary (nowhere have I mentioned Lamb or Kenyatta). I am simply criticizing Fetterman and the way he's chosen to run his campaign, which is of course fair game for this thread.

[Morning in Atlas]

So this is a false equivalence.  But for the record, if Clinton had suffered a stroke and been incapacitated from the campaign trail for months, and provided little to no information regarding her recovery, I would have considered that a huge emergency and been on board with her potentially being replaced (although preferably with Biden, Booker, Warren, or someone else with better electoral prospects than Sanders).

Then why throw Lamb's name in the hat? Aside from his own electoral performance this primary, he supported the Philly mask mandate. Certainly that's about as extreme as defunding the police or transforming the economic order, no?

[Xing]

I'm sure that people who are talking about replacing Fetterman with Lamb were strongly considering replacing Clinton with Sanders in September 2016.

Clinton got pneumonia for a few days and was pretty clear regarding her health status and progress towards recovery.  She famously took an awkward little walk outside her daughter's apartment that same day just to quell malicious speculation from the press.

Fetterman has disappeared for weeks, provided very little clarity regarding his health status, and not given any clear timeline regarding his return.  And his health problems are far more concerning and permanent than Clinton's bout with pneumonia.

So this is a false equivalence.  But for the record, if Clinton had suffered a stroke and been incapacitated from the campaign trail for months, and provided little to no information regarding her recovery, I would have considered that a huge emergency and been on board with her potentially being replaced (although preferably with Biden, Booker, Warren, or someone else with better electoral prospects than Sanders).

I don't think Fetterman is a huge emergency yet, but if his return date starts shifting into August/September, and we still haven't even seen him, I think that's a perfectly valid thing to consider as an electoral emergency.

If Lamb should be picked simply because he got a very distant second, then why shouldn't Sanders have been the pick if Clinton had suffered a much more serious health problem, given that he was the choice of over 40% of primary voters? My point is that there is not sufficient indication that Fetterman's health is going to be a problem if he's careful, and the discussion about replacing him is clearly wishful thinking and inconsistent unless one believes that the 2nd place finisher in a primary should always be the one chosen in emergency cases.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

The PA DoS confirmed Oz as the winner of the GOP primary yesterday, btw. He won by 951 votes. Accolades and so forth:

Oz by less than 1000 votes

[Morning in Atlas]

I'd like to point out that you don't see any Kenyatta supporters doing this. You don't even see RecoveringDemocrat, whose name is literally "Fetterman = George Zimmerman", doing this. You don't see Steve Irwin or any other centrist in America doing this.

One candidate and their supporters are the ones doing this. One ideology doing this. It just takes incredible balls to demand a do-over of a primary y'all lost by 30%.

[Comrade Funk]

People don't like Democrats or the Democratic Party. Gotta run as an outsider and that's something Fetterman gets.

[Mr. Matt]

The PA DoS confirmed Oz as the winner of the GOP primary yesterday, btw. He won by 951 votes.

The recount results are as follows:

    Mehmet C. Oz – 419,999

If only one more Republican pot head could have turned out for Oz...

[KaiserDave]

Fetterman is not leaving the ticket. Nor should he.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Even if Fetterman somehow left the ticket, his replacement should still be in the ideological and stylistic mold of Fetterman.  Voters didn’t just reject Lamb, they voted against his platform.  The Democratic Party needs to respect that.

[Morning in Atlas]

Even if Fetterman somehow left the ticket, his replacement should still be in the ideological and stylistic mold of Fetterman.  Voters didn’t just reject Lamb, they voted against his platform.  The Democratic Party needs to respect that.

Who would that be, since Cartwright has his own House race?

I'd throw Kenyatta's name in the ring again - he's someone that everyone can get behind, is progressive enough, and impressed despite limited financial backing. I've always been a proponent of finding diamonds in the rough and I believe Kenyatta would have had a respectable performance if the establishment backed him over Lamb. There are relatively few people on either side of the debate who have anything against him.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Even if Fetterman somehow left the ticket, his replacement should still be in the ideological and stylistic mold of Fetterman.  Voters didn’t just reject Lamb, they voted against his platform.  The Democratic Party needs to respect that.

Who would that be, since Cartwright has his own House race?

I'd throw Kenyatta's name in the ring again - he's someone that everyone can get behind, is progressive enough, and impressed despite limited financial backing. I've always been a proponent of finding diamonds in the rough and I believe Kenyatta would have had a respectable performance if the establishment backed him over Lamb. There are relatively few people on either side of the debate who have anything against him.

I dunno, but Kenyatta has even less claim to the nomination than Lamb.  I’d say concede Cartwright’s House seat and give him the nomination if Fetterman has to be replaced (which is far from certain imo).

[KaiserDave]

Fetterman isn't going to be replaced I'm not sure why it's even being discussed. The campaign doesn't start in earnest for months.

[wbrocks67]

Fetterman isn't going to be replaced I'm not sure why it's even being discussed. The campaign doesn't start in earnest for months.

This. Fetterman has been appearing in videos on his social accounts - he's alive and well. Clearly he just is being told to wait to do any serious campaigning for a minute.

Meanwhile, the primary has been over and we have no GE polls still. Incredible.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Fetterman and Ryan and Beasley I think are gonna win we don't know about IA, FL, WI, and we know Kelly, CCM, Hassan are tied or leading if Ryan is leading 44/41 Vance is a weak candidate, I know Fetterman can win

GA and maybe LA goes to a runoff and we have McMillan in UT that may caucus with Ds

[GeneralMacArthur]

I'm sure that people who are talking about replacing Fetterman with Lamb were strongly considering replacing Clinton with Sanders in September 2016.

Clinton got pneumonia for a few days and was pretty clear regarding her health status and progress towards recovery.  She famously took an awkward little walk outside her daughter's apartment that same day just to quell malicious speculation from the press.

Fetterman has disappeared for weeks, provided very little clarity regarding his health status, and not given any clear timeline regarding his return.  And his health problems are far more concerning and permanent than Clinton's bout with pneumonia.

So this is a false equivalence.  But for the record, if Clinton had suffered a stroke and been incapacitated from the campaign trail for months, and provided little to no information regarding her recovery, I would have considered that a huge emergency and been on board with her potentially being replaced (although preferably with Biden, Booker, Warren, or someone else with better electoral prospects than Sanders).

I don't think Fetterman is a huge emergency yet, but if his return date starts shifting into August/September, and we still haven't even seen him, I think that's a perfectly valid thing to consider as an electoral emergency.

If Lamb should be picked simply because he got a very distant second, then why shouldn't Sanders have been the pick if Clinton had suffered a much more serious health problem, given that he was the choice of over 40% of primary voters? My point is that there is not sufficient indication that Fetterman's health is going to be a problem if he's careful, and the discussion about replacing him is clearly wishful thinking and inconsistent unless one believes that the 2nd place finisher in a primary should always be the one chosen in emergency cases.

Lamb shouldn't be picked because of his distant second.  But it seems like he's the clear backup choice for most people in the state Democratic Party.  If there's another candidate that people actually would rather have over Lamb, should Fetterman not be capable of running, then that should be the nominee.  Just like most Dems in the party would have wanted Biden to be the nominee in 2016 if Clinton had to abdicate.

I'd like to point out that you don't see any Kenyatta supporters doing this. You don't even see RecoveringDemocrat, whose name is literally "Fetterman = George Zimmerman", doing this. You don't see Steve Irwin or any other centrist in America doing this.

One candidate and their supporters are the ones doing this. One ideology doing this. It just takes incredible balls to demand a do-over of a primary y'all lost by 30%.

uh, are there Kenyatta supporters?  I don't know of any.  I've also seen some Fetterman supporters willing to acknowledge that there is a pretty serious issue here.