Number One with a Bullet (Head)

I first became aware of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in 2009, when he appeared on The Colbert Report. At the time, Fetterman was the unorthodox mayor of economically-battered Braddock, PA, a town devastated by the decline of the steel industry and ravaged by the era's recession. In the clip below, Fetterman talks of social justice and equity long before those terms were mainstream.

Now, more than a decade later, Fetterman has returned to my (and the nation's) conscience as the larger-than-life (dude is 6'8" and built like an offensive lineman) face of the state's electoral prominence. He likened the President's role in the process to "rolling up in a clown car to downtown Philadelphia". Later in the week, he appreciated Senator Pat Toomey's public rebuke of Trump's claims of electoral fraud, but added, "“It would’ve been nice if someone had FedEx-ed him that backbone four years ago.”

As this Salon profile points out, Fetterman's more than just quick with a quip; his appearance and personal style (rarely wears suits, is heavily tattooed, lives with his wife and kids in a converted auto dealership) belie a dude that's a legitimate public servant with a history of getting things done in difficult circumstances. From the Salon piece, this quote from a Twitter fan says a lot, "our Lt. Gov is not just some big lovable mascot but a smart dude with a track record of actually doing shit and broadly appealing policy positions. The future of the electable left looks like John and his family."

John and his family are something else, too. His Twitter feed is a running chronicle of the ways in which his Brazilian-born wife Gisele makes fun of him for doing things like failing to close kitchen drawers or wearing cargo shorts to their wedding. They seem for all the world like real, good folks. 

There seems to be an awful lot to like about a guy who went to Harvard, eschewed the normal path of folks with that degree and moved to a derelict little town in Western PA to try to put his ideas about society to good use. In a messy world like ours, there are no perfect politicians, as this 2018 Washington Post profile notes. Fetterman lost an endorsement from Bernie Sanders backers in the Our Revolution organization (despite being endorsed by Sanders himself) because he owns a gun and supported a limited fracking program because it meant 3,000 jobs for his region. 

After the downballot disappointment of 2020 (even though they took the big prize, Dems definitely missed a chance to give the Biden/Harris administration a running start in Congress), lefty purity tests are a recipe to continue to have Republicans hand Democrats their electoral assess. Smart, charismatic, unique, and real people like John Fetterman are the future of the party.

I hope we see more of him. And Gisele. She's a hoot.