Fetterman and Oz should debate before the voting starts
WASHINGTON — Sen.
Mark Kirk, R-Ill., suffered a massive stroke in 2012. He had to relearn how to walk, write and speak. It took him nearly a year before he was able to return to the Senate. He suffered permanent paralysis on his left side and used a cane and wheelchair. The stroke left him with halting speech — and in 2016, USA Today reported that he “blurted out a series of gaffes last year that he later walked back, leading some to question if his stroke was to blame.”
Yet during his 2016 reelection campaign, Kirk participated in two debates with his Democratic opponent, then-Rep. Tammy Duckworth. In the first, the Chicago Tribune reported, Kirk “delivered short answers ... and sometimes offered non sequiturs in response to questions.” In the second, he mocked Duckworth’s ethnicity and family history of military service.
Kirk lost his reelection. But he appeared on the debate stage nonetheless.
This history is worth recalling as Pennsylvania Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman runs for the U.S. Senate after suffering a stroke right before the primary in May. Fetterman’s stroke does not seem to have been as serious as
Kirk’s, though his campaign has not released his medical records and waited two days before informing the public he was in the hospital. He disappeared for months, and since his return he has occasionally struggled on the campaign trail.
In one recent appearance, Fetterman at times spoke haltingly and dropped words midsentence: “What is wrong with demanding ... for ... an easy, safe ... kind of ... their income ... a path to a safe place for them to win ... excuse me, to work,” he said. It was painful to watch and raised legitimate concerns about whether his campaign has been upfront with voters about his medical condition.
His Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, has not handled the situation well. After Fetterman ridiculed Oz for referring to a vegetable platter as “crudité,” Oz’s campaign responded by declaring that “if John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke.” It was unseemly for Oz — a cardiothoracic surgeon — to mock the health of a stroke victim.
But that’s no excuse for Fetterman to duck debates before voters begin casting mail-in ballots on Sept. 19. Oz has agreed to five debates. Two — one hosted by Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV, and another by WFMZ-TV and the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce — already had to be canceled because Fetterman said he would not attend. After weeks of rebuffing Oz’s debate challenge, this week Fetterman finally agreed to one — but not, he said, until “sometime in the middle to end of October.”
That is long after mail-in voting begins. At a time when Democrats are championing early voting — and labeling those who oppose it as advocates of “Jim Crow 2.0” — that’s not good enough. Fetterman and Oz should debate before the start of the election — Sept. 19 — so that voters can have a chance to judge the candidates for themselves before they are allowed to cast a ballot.
Health is not the only thing Fetterman would have to explain on the debate stage. He was asked in an interview last year, “If you had a magic wand and you could wave it and fix one thing, what would it be?” He answered: “Life without parole in Pennsylvania.”
If you ask Pennsylvania voters what they would fix if they could wave a magic wand, I suspect inflation, gas prices, crime and deaths from fentanyl coming across our unsecured southern border rank higher on their lists than releasing convicted murderers. Fetterman has advocated releasing one-third of Pennsylvania’s prison population. He needs to explain and defend this, as well as other controversial left-wing positions he has taken.
Fetterman is undoubtedly reluctant to appear in more than one debate because he is leading in all the polls — in some by double digits. That lead could evaporate if many Pennsylvania voters were to decide he is not healthy enough to serve in the Senate. Oz needs to be careful, and treat Fetterman with dignity if he stumbles. Because voters are compassionate — and for many the only thing worse than a potentially impaired Senate candidate would be someone who makes fun of an impaired Senate candidate.
Debating is part of a senator’s job. It is true many senators have suffered cognitive decline in office and still been reelected. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., was reelected long past his prime at the age of 93 (but promised not to run again at 99). His Democratic colleague, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, famously said “the best nursing home is the U.S. Senate.” But Thurmond was already a legendary figure in South Carolina politics, and voters were fully aware of his mental and physical state before reelecting him.
It is perfectly legitimate to make reasonable debate accommodations for Fetterman, should he need them. His campaign says he would struggle with “auditory processing” in a noisy debate hall. Kirk, for example, was allowed to debate sitting down.
But Fetterman’s campaign insists he is healthy and up to the job he is seeking. Pennsylvania voters deserve the chance to judge for themselves before they start casting ballots in less than two weeks. If Kirk could hold more than one debate, so can Fetterman.