Fetterman is headed to campaign management in Pennsylvania

The 6-foot-8 Fetterman will tower 3 inches above the current tallest senator, Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas. And he might be the most tattooed senator (if not the only tattooed senator).

He can break some things: He can be aggressively progressive, campaigning hard on a promise to rid the Senate of the filibuster rule. He may also become the Senate’s biggest media attraction: He’s outspoken and, especially on social media, has a wicked wit.

He has a fan in Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom Fetterman endorsed for president in 2016, when Sanders was the insurgent Democrat challenging incumbent Hillary Clinton.

Sanders called Fetterman’s race a national marquee race — a victory for a progressive candidate who focused on economic issues, the struggles of the middle class and the growing wealth of the wealthy.

“And I think if there’s a candidate who’s run more than anyone else, who’s identified with the working class, who’s made it clear that he’s going to Washington to represent working people, it’s John Fetterman.” , Sanders told The Associated Press.

Fetterman downplays his own progressivism. Instead, he said, the Democratic Party has reverted to his long-standing positions — such as legalizing marijuana — and presented itself as a Democrat who votes as a Democrat.

On the campaign trail, Fetterman said he would like to emulate fellow Pennsylvania Democrat third-term Sen. Bob Casey, an institution in state politics who campaigned for Fetterman and lent his chief of staff to help for overseeing Fetterman’s transition.

Casey doesn’t expect Fetterman’s progressive policies to unseat him, saying Democrats already have a broad coalition that can get things done, like President Joe Biden’s infrastructure legislation and massive health care and climate change bills.

“I think you’re seeing a kind of broad coalition that’s going to stick together to move the country forward.” So I think John will fit in well with that,” Casey said. “And there will be times when he has an issue that he wants to pursue, but not everyone will, but we can work on those.”

Fetterman, 53, has just won the most expensive — and possibly the most unusual — Senate race of the midterm elections.

Midway through the campaign, Fetterman survived, then recovered from, a stroke that he says nearly killed him. He went on to beat Dr. Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon turned TV celebrity who spent $27 million of his own money after moving from New Jersey to run.

Fetterman still suffers from an auditory processing disorder — a common consequence of a stroke — that can require him to use closed captioning during hearings, meetings and debates. It also could limit his ability to engage in the usual practice of giving interviews to reporters in the Senate corridors.

Fetterman’s fashion sensibilities — he sports hoodies and shorts, even in winter — came to the fore during the campaign when Republicans cast him as someone who dresses like a teenager living in his parents’ basement. At an Oz campaign event, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., quipped to the crowd that at least Oz was “wearing pants.”

In the Senate, Fetterman will join the clubiest of clubs, 100 of the nation’s best insiders: millionaires, descendants and king or queen makers. Many of his supporters see him in the Senate differently: as an outsider.

Fetterman became something of a progressive hero without the party’s help, attracting a following as mayor of a satellite community in Pittsburgh. In that role, he performed same-sex marriages before they were legal, and was arrested at a demonstration after the Pittsburgh regional health giant closed a hospital in Braddock, his impoverished town.

“It’s for us – not for the big movie stars or the big people who have all the money. He’s for the little guys from Pennsylvania,” said one supporter, Lydia Thomas.

In an eventual review of his Senate tenure, Fetterman’s campaign struck a balance between domestic and foreign.

He has built ties with Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf, and has received high-level campaign aid from Biden and former President Barack Obama. But as lieutenant governor, he built a reputation for not making fun of state lawmakers and, as a candidate, not kissing the rings of party insiders.

When it came time for the state Democratic Party to endorse in the four-way Senate primary, Fetterman dismissed it as a deal; his campaign dismissed it as an “inside game.”

During his campaign, Fetterman regularly used Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia as a stick, suggesting that Manchin did not vote like a Democrat and would not get rid of the pirate.

At a packed county Democratic breakfast, he asked voters if there were any “Joe Manchin Democrats” in the room. No one spoke. Fetterman then told them that a Democrat who doesn’t support eliminating the filibuster “must believe there are 10 or 12 Republican senators on conscience.” Manchin’s office had no comment.

It’s not clear if Fetterman saw himself as an underdog or if he intended to run that way. He dismissed questions about his style or how he would fit in the Senate, saying that should be the least of anyone’s worries given the stakes.

“Here’s what I promise never to do: I promise never to cause a riot on Capitol Hill. I promise never to run for the Senate after being kicked out of it by a group of rebels and lying about our Pennsylvania elections,” Fetterman said in an interview last year.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Fetterman was in high demand by television networks and carried the Biden shield. As a senator, he could again be in high demand on Sunday talk shows. And his social media feeds will bear watching: His campaign mercilessly trolls Oz, and he sometimes spews expletives when describing things he doesn’t like.

Then there’s his wardrobe. Fetterman said he would wear a suit on the Senate floor, and sure enough, when he showed up for orientation earlier this month, he did. He’s not a total stranger to dressing up; he wore a suit while presiding as lieutenant governor in the state senate.

Senate aides aren’t sure if the Senate’s dress code is written down anywhere. And while men are expected to wear jackets and ties, Casey suggests the dress code isn’t always enforced.

“I’ve seen some Republican members recently, whose names I won’t reveal — but if you watch the video carefully, you can see — show up without a tie or sometimes without a jacket,” Casey said.

Fetterman hasn’t always shown reverence for the expectations or demands of a job he might not like. For example, as mayor of Braddock, he missed roughly a third of city council meetings during his 13 years in office, records show.

He missed dozens of state Senate voting sessions during his four years as lieutenant governor, including eight of nine days this fall while on the campaign trail. When he appeared to preside, Republican senators complained that he showed a lack of interest in learning the rules of order.

Republican senators twice went through extraordinary procedural maneuvers to remove him as presiding officer in the middle of a voting session, alleging that he deliberately broke rules of order to help his fellow Democrats in partisan clashes.

Not only that, but he ruffled feathers by hanging banners — such as pro-marijuana legalization and LGBTQ and transgender rights flags — from the door to the lieutenant governor’s office and his second-floor outdoor balcony, which overlooks the Capitol’s sprawling front steps.

Republicans, who complained he was turning his Capitol office into a dormitory, inserted a provision in budget legislation to stop it — prompting Fetterman to vilify them as organizing the “gay pride police.”

The US Senate will have its own bias and its own deals between members. Casey says Fetterman is prepared for this, having served as mayor and lieutenant governor. What may be the biggest change for Fetterman, Casey said, is the need for time that will keep him in Washington and away from his wife and three school-aged children.

“Your life becomes — because of the schedule of votes and hearings — Washington time, and it’s different,” Casey said. “Most people don’t have that kind of schedule where … sometimes you’re in Washington more than the state you’re representing.”

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Associated Press national political writer Steve Peoples and video journalist Jesse Vardarski contributed to this report. Follow Mark Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter