Lt. Gov. stops in Sharon to meet voters, picks up wings to go

Aug. 26—SHARON — Early one morning, about a dozen or so years ago, Tom Moore pulled up in his taxicab at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh to pick up a young husband and wife.

They, and their child, had gotten to the hospital by ambulance, but they had no way to get back to their home in Braddock. and no money to pay the taxi fare.

A hospital security guard waved him over to the telephone. Braddock Mayor John Fetterman was on the other end.

"He said 'I'll cover the fare all the way to Braddock,'" Moore said.

That was the night Moore became a John Fetterman supporter.

"I thought that was really good," Moore said. "That really impressed me."

Now retired from from cab driving and living in Grove City, Moore made sure he was at Our Gang's Lounge in Sharon Wednesday evening for a campaign stop by now-Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who is not seeking re-election.

Even though Fetterman frequently promotes Our Gang's as "The Best Wings In America" — his words — he went to Sharon for more than takeout. The stop was part of a campaign that plans to visit places — including Mercer County, which supported former President Donald Trump by a margin of roughly 2-to-1 in the 2020 election — that might not be expected to support a progressive Democrat.

"I've always run a 67-county campaign and Mercer County is important in that," Fetterman said during his remarks at the event. "Folks like you are the heart and soul of this. Just like you have the best wings in America, you also have the most authentic people."

This campaign marks Fetterman's second run for the U.S. Senate. In 2016, he lost in the Democratic primary to Katie McGinty, who lost to Toomey in the general election. He faces a potentially large field — including U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of Philadelphia and state Sen. Sharif Street of Philadelphia.

The Republican field includes Sean Parnell, who lost his congressional race to Lamb in 2020; businessman Jeff Bartos, the Republican lieutenant governor nominee in 2018; businessman Everett Stern, who lost previous bids for the U.S. Senate in 2016 and Congress in 2014; and former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands.

Fetterman said Wednesday that his stances — including support for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, LGBTQ rights, women's reproductive freedom and legal recreational marijuana — were seen, even among Democrats, as radical positions in his previous Senate campaign, five years ago. Today, he said, that same platform is almost mainstream in the Democratic party.

The lieutenant governor cited those positions, along with support for voting rights bills passed by the House of Representatives but blocked in the U.S. Senate, as policy goals that all Democrats should support.

Pointing at centrist Democratic U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Fetterman said "Democrats should vote like Democrats."

"If you're pleased with the way Senators Manchin and Sinema are voting, I'm probably not your candidate."

For Melanie Ferguson of Hermitage, Fetterman's message was inspiring. She shouted,"Let's bring back hope!" while the lieutenant governor was talking.

"I just got so excited," said Ferguson, a candidate for Hermitage School Board. "I think he's bringing back hope."

Prior to his election as lieutenant governor in 2018, Fetterman was mayor of Braddock after being elected to that post in 2006. On Wednesday, he was quick to note common ground with Farrell Mayor Kimberly Doss.

"It's a thankless job," Fetterman told Doss.

Doss also noted the similarities between Braddock, a borough in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh that was gutted in the steel crash of the 1970s and 80s and has been an economically distressed community since 1988 under Pennsylvania's Act 47 provisions. Farrell, also hit hard by the steel collapse, was the first municipality in the state to request Act 47 protection and shed its economically distressed status in 2019.

"His story is similar a little bit to Farrell," Doss said. "It was nice that he came to this community."

Fetterman stopped in Sharon to make a campaign stop. But he couldn't get away from Our Gang's without touting the wing selections — he prefers the Gino's hot, with a light dusting of parmesan.

In his estimation, the wings at Our Gang's aren't just delicious. They're iconic.

"If wings are Elvis, this is Graceland," he said.

In spite of heavy rains earlier in the day, at least 50 people turned out where they crowded under temporary shelters. Fetterman stopped to talk to almost everyone who turned out.

Including Moore, who told the lieutenant governor about that night in the taxicab outside Children's Hospital.

Fetterman was touched, and a little embarrassed, by the story.

"I don't publicize this or talk about these things, but these are the kind of things that I believe in," he said.