Lengthy article but a good read... Why do so many Democrats fear John Fetterman? The Democrats’ Giant Dilemma John Fetterman’s blue-collar progressivism has endeared him to Pennsylvania voters. Why are so many Democratic leaders opposing his Senate run? https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...file-2022-senate-politics-pennsylvania-481259 John Fetterman is one of the most photographed rising stars in the Democratic Party. As gargantuan as Lurch Addams, with a bald head, goatee and closet full of Dickies shirts—and tattoos running down his arm marking every date a life was taken while he was mayor of his hard-knock steel town—Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor is a cartoon image of a working guy from the Rust Belt. Which is catnip for glossy magazine spreads. But Fetterman hates having his picture taken. At a shoot at his home in Braddock, Pennsylvania—a converted car dealership full of salvaged treasures that looks like something out of Architectural Digest—he’s not trying to hide his grumpiness even a little bit. He says he’ll pose for photos only while standing. (He’s 6 foot 8.) His senior campaign aide, Bobby Maggio, thanks a photographer for “dealing with Cranky Pants.” Fetterman jokes—although it’s clear he’s only half-kidding—that people prefer to take pictures of his wife, Gisele, and their dog. “It all looks the same to me,” he says of portraits of himself. “It’s like Paul Rudd, except he’s handsome, I guess. It’s kind of like, same picture—not much you can do with it.” The idea of Fetterman trying out a new look to mix things up is, of course, out of the question: “I genuinely don’t have anything to wear that different. That’s just me.” Most politicians love being in front of the camera. The few who don’t treat it as a necessary cost of media attention. But the man who has been profiled in People, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, the Washington Post and countless other publications—and who became the de facto spokesman for Pennsylvania Democrats after former President Donald Trump cried fraud in the state in 2020, appearing on multiple cable TV networks hour after hour—still hasn’t learned to tolerate it, even if his fame is due in part to how he looks. Fetterman first exploded onto the national scene shortly after he was elected mayor of Braddock, a small, dilapidated town outside Pittsburgh, in 2005. Mayors of 2,000-person boroughs don’t typically receive much attention. But Fetterman had a story: A man who could pass for a Hells Angel and had a Harvard degree was revitalizing a place that epitomized the rise and fall of America’s steel industry—building a community center, renovating crumbling properties, talking about using art “to combat the dark side of capitalism.” Within a few years, he appeared in the Atlantic’s “25 Brave Thinkers” issue and was invited to speak at the Aspen Ideas Festival. In 2018,he was elected lieutenant governor of the state, on a ticket with Gov. Tom Wolf, in a landslide. After years in the spotlight, though, Fetterman remains unwilling, or perhaps unable, to play the part of a traditional politician. He hates mugging for the camera. He refuses to buy more than one suit. He’s shunned the lieutenant governor’s official mansion in Harrisburg, preferring to stay in his Braddock loft. He is constitutionally incapable of schmoozing with other elected officials. Fetterman had a story: A man who could pass for a Hells Angel and had a Harvard degree was revitalizing a majority-Black town that epitomized the rise and fall of America’s steel industry. So far none of those things have stopped him—in fact, they have often helped him—as he’s leapt from small-town mayor to swing-state lieutenant governor. But now he is running for an office that will put that to the ultimate test: He’s the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination in one of the most important Senate races in the country in 2022—a position he ran for and lost in 2016. And he’s facing some uncommonly strong headwinds from his own party. Since launching his Senate campaign in February, Fetterman has quickly amassed nearly $4 million—more than any other Democrat in the fieldand mostly in small-dollar donations. He’s running as a progressive and supports raising the minimum wage, Medicare for All, criminal justice reform and marijuana legalization. But he’s more middle-of-the-road on items like fracking and the Green New Deal. And while he’s pro-gun control, he has been a gun owner himself. (Two lesser-known contenders, liberal state lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta and moderate county commissioner Val Arkoosh, have also already thrown their hats in the ring. Other big-name Democrats who are more centrist than Fetterman, like Rep. Conor Lamb, might still jump in.) Fetterman’s fans think his brand of economic progressivism and his Carhartt-wearing linebacker vibe make him uniquely able to win elections in the kinds of Rust Belt and white working-class areas where Democrats have been hemorrhaging support. In a party often seen as too elite, the lieutenant governor is unfussy and plainspoken—he poses for official government photos in workman’s shirts and calls Republicans “simps” on Twitter. Fetterman’s campaign is making the case that he has the best shot at picking off Trump voters in the general election. That is, if he can get anywhere in the primary first. Already, he’s butting up against fierce resistance from a wide array of party leaders. Some take issue with his politics: Moderates think his deep commitment to getting repentant convicts out of life sentences is too radical. Progressives say he’s too squishy on fracking.Other Democratic honchos—from left to center—resent his go-it-alone attitude. They argue he’s a loner who doesn’t spend any time trying to build alliances with other pols—and that as a result he’ll be less effective in office. But for many party leaders, this isn’t a question of “the intractable outsider” vs. “the establishment.” Fetterman’s candidacy hits at the heart of the debate roiling the Democratic Party today: Should the party try to win back working-class white voters who stray further from them every year or double down on the suburban and Black electorate that has powered their recent wins? Fetterman’s white guy working-class appeal, they say, is outdated for a party that should be committed to addressing structural racism. Ryan Boyer, the African American president of Philadelphia’s powerful building trades council, took to Facebook earlier this year to make the case for a Black nominee: “What has John [Fetterman]done to warrant a U.S. Senate seat? If black [women] are the base of the Democratic Party … shouldn’t the state party recruit an African American candidate[?]” One African American state House member says Fetterman’s “authentic” brandsmacks of white male privilege. “I know it would be an impossible race[for a Black candidate]to be able to run for anything across the state being dressed down every day,” says the lawmaker. “It’s just not fair. It’s such a double standard.” Fetterman’s team, meanwhile, maintains that his lack of pretense is exactly why rank-and-file Democrats like him—in Trump country, sure, but among other demographics too. It’s why he was reelected mayor of majority-Black Braddock by huge margins each time.It’s why he won his lieutenant governor primary and then statewide office with Wolf by double digits, including performing well in some tony Philadelphia suburbs. Pennsylvania has a history of rewarding outsider candidates. But Fetterman’s rocky history with party elitesstill poses a problem, because for every Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Democratic politics, there are still more Bernie Sanders who lose out to the establishment. In the very Senate seat that Fetterman is vying for, there is a history of crushed mavericks. To win, Fetterman will have to figure out how either to surmount his party problems or render them irrelevant. (Much more at above url)