South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Presidential speakers in final push
Events in Pa., NY host Biden, Obama, Clinton and Trump
PITTSBURGH — The Democratic Party’s most powerful voices warned Saturday that abortion, Social Security and democracy itself are at risk as they labored to overcome fierce political headwinds — and an ill-timed misstep from President Joe Biden — over the final weekend of the 2022 midterm elections.
“Sulking and moping is not an option,” former President Barack Obama told several hundred voters in Pittsburgh.
“On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years,” Obama said. “The only way to save democracy is if we, together, fight for it.”
Obama was the first president, but not the last, to rally voters Saturday in Pennsylvania, a pivotal state as voters decide control of Congress and key statehouses. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 36 million people have already voted.
By day’s end, voters in the Keystone State also were to have heard directly from Biden as well as former President Donald Trump. And former President Bill Clinton was campaigning in New York.
Each was appearing with local candidates, but their words echoed across the country as the parties sent out their best to deliver a critical closing argument.
Not everyone, it seemed, was on message, however.
Even before arriving in Pennsylvania, Biden was dealing with a new political mess after upsetting some in his party for promoting plans to shut down fossil fuel plants in favor of green energy. While he made the comments in California the day before, the fossil fuel industry is a major employer in Pennsylvania.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Biden owed coal workers across the country an apology.
“Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting,” Manchin said.
Democrats are deeply concerned about their narrow majorities in the House and Senate as voters sour on Biden’s leadership amid surging inflation, crime concerns and widespread pessimism about the direction of the country. History suggests that Democrats, as the party in power, will suffer significant losses in the midterms.
Obama was accompanying Senate nominee John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor who represents his party’s best chance to flip a Republican-held seat. Later Saturday, they were to appear in Philadelphia with Biden and Josh Shapiro, the nominee for governor.
Trump will finish the day courting working-class voters in the southwestern corner of the state with Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Senate nominee, and Doug Mastriano, running for governor.
The attention on Pennsylvania underscores the stakes in 2022 and beyond for the tightly contested state. The Oz-Fetterman race could decide the Senate majority — and with it, Biden’s agenda and judicial appointments for the next two years. The governor’s contest will determine the direction of state policy and control of the state’s election infrastructure heading into the 2024 presidential contest.
Shapiro, the state attorney general, leads in polls over Mastriano, a state senator and retired Army colonel who some Republicans believe is too extreme to win in a state Biden narrowly carried two years ago.
Polls show a closer contest to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey as Fetterman recovers from a stroke he suffered in May. He jumbled words and struggled to complete sentences in his lone debate against Oz last month, although medical experts say he’s recovering well from the health scare.
Obama addressed Fetterman’s stroke directly when appearing with him in Pittsburgh.
“John’s stroke did not change who he is. It didn’t change what he cares about,” he said.
Fetterman railed against Oz and castigated the former New Jersey resident as an ultrawealthy carpetbagger who will say or do anything to get elected.
“I’ll be the 51st vote to eliminate the filibuster, to raise the minimum wage,” Fetterman said.
Oz has worked to craft a moderate image in the general election and focused his attacks on Fetterman’s progressive positions on criminal justice and drug decriminalization. Still, Oz has struggled to connect with some voters, including Republicans who think he’s too close to Trump, too liberal or inauthentic.
Obama acknowledged that voters are anxious after suffering through “some tough times” in recent years.
“The Republicans like to talk about it, but what’s their answer, what’s their economic policy?” Obama asked. “They want to gut Social Security. They want to gut Medicare. They want to give rich folks and big corporations more tax cuts.”