At Behrend, Fetterman makes last pitch to Erie voters with week left in Senate race

A week before Election Day, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman returned to Erie for the final time to ask voters to send him to the U.S. Senate.

In his third stop to the bellwether county during the general election, Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, sat across from Selena King, the chair of the Erie County Democratic Party Black Caucus, and answered questions on a range of issues, including crime, inflation, abortion, eliminating the filibuster, and health care.

Fetterman also discussed the stroke he suffered in May just days before the primary, how it's affected his campaign and why he decided to debate his GOP opponent despite lingering auditory processing issues that require him to use closed-captioning.

"I knew that it was going to be a challenge," he said. "You know, I'm five months into my recovery of having a stroke, but I've always been very clear that I would miss words or mush words together. But I think showing up is critical."

Fetterman's performance Tuesday stood in stark contrast to his rocky debate against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor. Fetterman on Tuesday rarely fumbled a word. His cadence was natural rather than uneven. He often spoke without pause, instead of haltingly as he did during the Oct. 25 televised contest with Oz.

Billed as a "conversation," Tuesday's event featured Fetterman and King seated on stage and most of the 200 people in attendance inside Behrend's Reed Union Building seated, too.

'We know you'll recover'

Fetterman said his stroke put into perspective the need for quality health care and, as he has done in recent campaign stops, including his Oct. 6 speech at the UE Local 506 Labor Hall in Lawrence Park, Fetterman asked the audience if they or a parent, grandparent or child had ever suffered a "personal health challenge." He said his stroke "could have gone differently" had he not been in an area of the state with the resources and staff capable of treating him.

Fetterman, who noted that his doctors have said he is "fit and able to serve" in the U.S. Senate, said Oz hasn't allowed him to forget about his stroke, making it an issue on the campaign trail by criticizing Fetterman for not debating him multiple times or holding more media interviews.

King, who became friends with Fetterman during his 2018 run for lieutenant governor when she worked for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said Oz should be "ashamed" as a doctor for his attacks on Fetterman.

"They do take an oath to serve," King said. "We know you'll recover and we're glad for your recovery, but there's no recovery for Dr. Oz."

Filibuster, Jan. 6 riot, abortion

During the event, which — also unlike the debate, was put on by the campaign — King asked Fetterman a variety of questions.

After asking Fetterman about Erie and his stroke, King questioned him about his support for eliminating the filibuster.

"Eliminating the filibuster was always critical if you want to have kind of the important kind of core issues that we believe in — not just Democrats, but I think a majority of Pennsylvanians all would like to see — enacted," he said about the Senate rule that allows a minority of senators to block a vote on legislation.

King, noting that Fetterman launched his U.S. Senate campaign days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, asked how the event shaped his campaign.

Fetterman turned the question back to King, who said she was "shocked" by what happened and if the mob storming the Capitol Building had been mostly Black "it would have been totally different."

Fetterman noted that there were only a handful of election fraud cases during the 2020 election out of the 7 million votes cast in Pennsylvania and that lies and debunked conspiracy theories about widespread fraud led to the U.S. Capitol riot.

"On Nov. 8, we really are in a fight and a battle for the soul of our democracy," King responded.

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On abortion, Fetterman told the crowd that it is "absurd" how Oz's campaign has portrayed support for Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision making access to abortion a constitutional right until the high court overturned it in the spring, as an "extremist" position.

Roe v. Wade, Fetterman said, "was the law of the nation, and that's the way it's stood for 50 years." Fetterman would codify the rights afforded to women through Roe v. Wade if elected.

On Wednesday, the Oz campaign responded:

"Dr. Mehmet Oz is pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother and opposes the federal government getting involved with states' decisions," Oz spokeswoman Rachel Tripp said in a statement. "Meanwhile, John Fetterman holds the extreme position of supporting taxpayer-funding for abortion up to the moment of birth. Pennsylvanians have a clear choice: John Fetterman, who always takes the extreme position on nearly every topic — or Dr. Oz, who will bring balance to Washington."

Crime and inflation

On crime, Fetterman pushed back against attacks on his record, saying that gun violence was the catalyst for him to run for mayor of his hometown of Braddock, Allegheny County, and that during his tenure the community went more than five years without a homicide. Fetterman worked as a GED instructor when two of his students were gunned down, he said, which motivated him to run for mayor, even though he was not a long-term resident of Braddock at the time and "didn't really look like a mayor." He won by a single vote.

"My promise was to fight and address gun violence," he said. "And that's exactly what we did. We partnered with our police, we funded the police, we supported the police. But it was also critical that we created a relationship and partnership with the community, too."

Oz, he charged, has been living "in New Jersey in a gated mansion" and has no experience fighting crime and never had a plan on fighting crime — "just a few words he put up on his website a few days ago." Oz released a six-point plan to fight crime on Oct. 24.

King thanked Fetterman for his role in criminal justice reform and second-chance laws, which include the Marijuan Pardon Project, which Gov. Tom Wolf's office describes as "a coordinated effort for a one-time, large-scale pardoning project for people with select minor, non-violent marijuana criminal convictions."

Oz has attacked Fetterman for his role on the five-member Board of Pardons, saying the lieutenant governor has voted to let convicted murders go free, but Fetterman said that most of the cases in which he's sought a second chance for criminals have been for non-violent offenses where the penalty has prevented them from leading productive lives well after being punished.

The Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police, the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, and the Pennsylvania Sheriffs' Association Political Action Committee have endorsed Oz, Tripp noted, "because he will ensure that our police officers have the resources they need to protect the commonwealth, that our brave first responders are respected and properly trained, and that our streets and neighborhoods are safe for everyone to enjoy.

"Dr. Oz will also crack down on cartels and fund drug rehab centers — quite the contrast from radical John Fetterman," Tripp said.

Fetterman on Tuesday also addressed voters' top concern heading into next week's vote — inflation and the economy — and his support for labor unions.

Fetterman said working families are being hurt by inflation, but also noted that corporations are taking in record profits, too.

"We have to be able to push back against, and not stand for the corporate greed that is rampant here," he said, "and the price-gouging."

He also said Republicans have been critical of Democrats' investments in things like tax breaks for working families and investments in infrastructure, "but they had no issue with the trillions in the gigantic corporate tax giveaways," in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Fighting against union way of life 'un-American'

Fetterman also affirmed his support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would help protect workers who want to form a union and collectively bargain a contract.

"I can think of few things more un-American than fighting against the union way of life instead of actually supporting it — whether you're a teacher, whether you're a steelworker, whether you're a governmental employee, this idea that you don't deserve to kind of have a wage that you can live in security, that you can have health care, the kind of health care I found really useful for me, the same kind of quality health care that saved my life, it should be (available) for you and every American."

After speaking for about 45 minutes, Fetterman shook hands of supporters and posed with them for photos. Wearing his signature black hoodie and jeans, Fetterman then held up both arms and said "I love you Erie" before exiting the conference room at Behrend.

Afterward, King said she saw a different John Fetterman than what she and most others witnessed in his debate performance.

During the debate, King felt that Fetterman appeared frustrated, which compounded his health issues. On Tuesday, though, she said that the candidate was more comfortable.

"I'm confident that he'll be able to do the job," she said. "There's definitely a lot of pressure, of course, but if anyone saw what happened tonight and saw how he was, they would know that he's ready for the job."

Matthew Rink can be reached at mrink@timesnews.com or on Twitter at @ETNRink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Fetterman makes last stop in Erie for U.S. Senate campaign