Facing criticism and questions about his performance in a Tuesday night debate in Harrisburg, Pa., Senate candidate John Fetterman responded on Twitter
TWTR,
by saying he’s not one to give up the fight.
“I got knocked down but I got back up,” the Democrat, currently the state’s lieutenant governor, tweeted. “I’m going to fight for everyone in PA who ever got knocked down and had to get back up.”
Fetterman is in a heated race against Republican candidate Mehmet Oz for the open Senate seat, which could be a pivotal one in terms of determining which party controls the chamber, currently evenly divided with the two independent senators caucusing with Democrats and the Vice President Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, positioned to break deadlocks.
Fetterman suffered a stroke five months ago, and it has resulted in auditory processing issues. At Fetterman’s request, monitors were in place during the debate that showed what was being said through closed captioning.
Still, Fetterman had problems. One example, as noted in a Wall Street Journal report: Fetterman began the event by saying “Good night, everybody” instead of “Good evening.”
See: Spotlight on Fetterman stroke recovery only intensifies after Oz debate
Some political commentators have been quick to claim that Fetterman’s performance raised serious questions. In the conservative National Review, Jim Geraghty said, “The entire Jenga-block tower of the John Fetterman campaign came crashing down … as it became painfully, abundantly clear that the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania is still suffering severe effects of his stroke.”
But the situation has prompted some on social media to signal their support for the candidate. (And Fetterman’s tweet itself has received more than 30,000 “likes.”)
Among those who weighed in was actor and director Mark Ruffalo. He pointed to his own recovery from a brain tumor.
Others agreed that Fetterman’s Senate run spoke to the need for better understanding and empathy, with one commenter noting, “We need more disabled people in the halls of government, not fewer.”
Some have also noted that Fetterman’s comments hark back to the 1997 Chumbawamba hit, “Tubthumping.” The key lyric from the song: “I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down.”
As one Twitter commentator observed: “John Fetterman not having Chumbawamba open his rallies for the next couple of weeks is a lost opportunity.”
The only problem with that? Chumbawamba disbanded a decade ago.
