A Democrat politician has been hospitalized while on the Senate Democratic retreat, having to head to the hospital because of “lightheadedness.”
That would be Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator who suffered a stroke while on the campaign trail in 2022, has been hospitalized. According to a statement put out by his office, the Senator was feeling lightheaded while at the Democratic Party retreat and had to head to the hospital because of that lightheadedness.
His office released a short statement describing what happened and claiming that he did not suffer from another stroke like the one he suffered from during the 2022 election, saying:
“Towards the end of the Senate Democratic retreat today, Senator John Fetterman began feeling lightheaded. He left and called his staff, who picked him up and drove him to The George Washington University Hospital. Initial tests did not show evidence of a new stroke, but doctors are running more tests and John is remaining overnight for observation. He is in good spirits and talking with his staff and family. We will provide more information when we have it.”
When then-candidate John Fetterman suffered a stroke on the campaign trail, he put out a statement saying “I hadn’t been feeling well, but was so focused on the campaign that I ignored the signs and just kept going … On Friday it finally caught up with me. I had a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long.”
Whether Fetterman’s stroke helped or hurt him much during the 2022 campaign is still unclear. On one hand, he struggled to effectively rebut or combat Dr. Oz’s attacks during their debate, as Politico reported at the time. But, on the other hand, he still ended up winning the race, so voters much have not minded too much that he struggled with speaking. Politico, reporting on the situation Fetterman was facing thanks to his stroke after the debate, reported that:
Let’s state the obvious: JOHN FETTERMAN struggled to effectively communicate during his one and only Senate debate with MEHMET OZ Tuesday in Harrisburg.
[…]
The conventional wisdom over the summer was that Oz was a deeply flawed candidate who couldn’t win, but the race is a toss-up. Republicans just decided to pour an additional $6 million into Pennsylvania to help Oz. “We believe if we win Pennsylvania, we win the majority,” STEVEN LAW, who runs the most important Senate GOP super PAC, told POLITICO Tuesday.
And then Fetterman failed to meet even the low expectations his own campaign set for him Monday in a memo that predicted “awkward pauses, missing some words, and mushing other words together” as well as “temporary miscommunications at times.”
WILL IT MATTER? — Voters are not doctors. Many are myopic, distracted, and quick to make judgments with limited information. If there’s one thing everyone knows about campaign debates, it’s how superficial they are. We all remember RICHARD NIXON’s suspicious stubble and GEORGE H.W. BUSH’s impatient glance at his watch and AL GORE’s annoying sighs and DONALD TRUMP’s manic interruptions more than anything any of them said.
Still, though Senator John “Lurch” Fetterman and his neck growth had trouble speaking, voters still voted for him over Dr. Oz and put him in office. So voters must not have really cared all that much.
By: Will Tanner. Follow me on Twitter @Will_Tanner_1
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