By Glynn Wilson –

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — The fate of American democracy could once again rest on the shoulders of the good people of Pennsylvania, where it all began in Philadelphia and may well have been saved on a battlefield in Gettysburg.

In some very real ways we are fighting another civil war for the soul of the country, which could determine the future direction of this nation for years, and it could all come down to a vote in a race for the United States Senate here.

A man who has proven himself to be a true public servant of the people, John Fetterman, is the state’s Lt. Governor who has been leading in the race to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey for months. But due to a health crisis, Fetterman suffered a stroke back in May, and personal attacks from a celebrity doctor who is not even a resident of Pennsylvania and who is on Trump’s side, Mehmet Oz, the race is tightening in the final month before Election Day Nov. 8.

Like every time I visit Gettysburg, just about 15 miles north of where I like to camp for the summer in Maryland, I drive right past the hallowed ground in the cemetery where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. On Thursday, a sunny day with early fall color beginning to show up in the trees, there was a large crowd there listening to a National Park Service Ranger program about the war and the speech.

Related: Seeing the Light from Gettysburg and Pennsylvania

Downtown in this city of about 7,600 people, a majority Democrats, I like to visit the headquarters of the Adams County Democratic Committee to check the pulse of the race by talking to the staff and volunteers. Adams county is home to about 103,800 people, and being a rural county, is more Republican than not.

After I parked in the Circle K parking lot and picked up a few Snapple Mango Orange drinks, the only place in my travels I find them, I J-walked across the street and discovered that the party headquarters had moved a few doors down from where it was in 2020 when the staff predicted a win for Biden.

There I met party volunteer Mark Oldenburg, a native of New York state who has lived here since 1986 and when he attended Gettysburg College.

He’s a fan of Fetterman, who was the mayor of Braddock and a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He tells me about how Braddock got famous by tattooing the date on his arm every time a young person died as a result of violence.

“He’s a dedicated public servant,” he said. “A real competent one. He’s an interesting guy, certainly not a buttoned down guy.”

Fetterman comes off as a regular guy on the campaign trail, often wearing shorts and a T-shirt and hoodie instead of a suit and tie.

As Lt. Governor, Fetterman was the point person listening to constituents in the drive for medical marijuana in Pennsylvania, which passed. He also recommended parole and early release for non-violent prisoners to relieve prison overcrowding.

Dr. Oz is not so well thought of here, he said, even among the Republican faithful, since he lived in New Jersey and had a bunch of mansions in Turkey, Florida and New York — and who also happens to be a “secular Muslim,” who maintains dual citizenship with Turkey. This has not been reported often nationally, and Fetterman has yet to make an issue of it, but could any day now.

“I have no idea why he wants to be a Senator,” Oldenburg said of this Dr. Oz, who got famous appearing on Oprah Winfrey’s show. “The few ads I’ve seen of him don’t have much substance to them.”

Which brings up a question. Where is Oprah when we need her? She should disavow this guy publicly.

There is also an important and close race for governor in Pennsylvania going on now, between Democrat Josh Shapiro and Trump Republican Doug Mastriano.

“The governor’s race is looking less close than the Senate race,” he said. “Shapiro seems to have a good sized lead.”

“But polls?” he said. “Who knows. If I were voting for Mastriano I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

Like many Republicans around the country, Mastriano has embraced the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

While we were talking the county chair Marsha Wilson came in. She’s the one who told me Biden was going to carry Pennsylvania in 2020, and proved to be right. When I asked if the Democrats were going to win the governor’s race and the senate race this time, she said: “We are! We can’t think otherwise.”

“We are feeling positive,” she said. “We know that as it gets closer to the election things tighten up. That is always the case. But we are working as hard as we can, and we definitely believe that both of our candidates will prevail.”

According to the latest polls, however, Oz has been gaining ground, and Real Clear Politics has the race ranked as a dead heat with the last minute odds favoring Oz in the end, in part because of a correction to the polls showing a 5 point over estimation of support for Democrats.

But according to The New York Times, the Democrats’ best chance to pick up a Republican seat is in Pennsylvania. Oz won the Republican nomination with Trump’s endorsement, “but he did not have the love of the Republican base,” the Times reports.

Fetterman had a life-threatening stroke that gave Dr. Oz an opening. That plus the Republican’s attacks on Fetterman as “a criminal-coddling liberal,” have narrowed the race, one of the more interesting in the country because of the meme battle on social media. This race is not all about negative attack ads on TV. It has emerged as a social media battle royal, with a Democrat willing to engage against a Republican in ways not seen in other places.

A recent Fetterman tweet:

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're asking donors for money in front of Hitler’s literal car, then you shouldn't be running for U.S. Senate https://t.co/68X6ulCPQa

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) October 7, 2022

In an ongoing attempt to prove he’s just a regular guy and not a superrich TV personality with multiple expensive homes, Oz released a video of himself shopping for groceries and blaming Biden for the high cost of “crudité.”

“In PA, we call this a veggie tray,” Fetterman fired back on Facebook and Twitter.

Fetterman also released a video of three women wearing broccoli costumes.

Democrats have a highway billboard near the state border telling motorists they’re “now leaving” New Jersey for Pennsylvania, “JUST LIKE DR. OZ.”

Oz used to be for gun control but turned about and became a Second Amendment advocate during the Republican Senate primary campaign, and his position on abortion seems to be evolving. He emerged from that primary as “strongly pro-life” but now reminds voters he isn’t keen to punish anybody involved in terminating a pregnancy.

In one of his least charming tweets, Oz sent out a picture of Fetterman in boxer shorts, his rather expansive stomach bare, calling him a “Basement Bum.”

Oz’s communications adviser claimed that if Fetterman had “ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke.”

A debate is scheduled for Oct. 25, and some are worried about how Fetterman might perform, since the stroke has effected his speech patterns some and slowed his response time.

Dr. Oz came out of the primary with terrible favorability ratings, according to Times public opinion analysis Nate Cohn. Many would-be Republican voters were not prepared to say they would support him. Back in a July poll from Fox News, Dr. Oz had just 73 percent support among Republicans. Now, it’s 83 percent, however.

“Realistically, many of those Republicans were going to rally behind Dr. Oz once the general election campaign got underway and once Republicans started judging him compared with a Democrat, rather than against Republicans,” he said.

Fetterman has endured forceful attacks related to his health, as well as his views about crime and the economy.

“There’s reason to think those attacks are taking a toll,” the Times reports.

A Franklin and Marshall poll last week found Fetterman’s favorability ratings under water, with 46 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of him compared with 40 percent with a favorable view. Back in August, the numbers were nearly reversed: Just 36 percent had an unfavorable view of him, compared with 43 percent with a favorable view.

Dr. Oz’s favorability ratings are still worse than Fetterman’s, however. And so far, most voters say they’re not concerned about Fetterman’s health.

On the other side, the rich and famous doctor has loaned his own campaign more than $7 million, showing he’s willing to buy the race out of his own pocket.

It will be close, but Fetterman could still prevail, especially if the five point correction in Democrats polling participation is off. Fetterman still leads by about 4 points in most polls.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war,” Lincoln said.

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation … shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Let it be so again. If the Republicans take back the Senate, as well as the House, American democracy may not survive to thrive another day.

Fascism is on the march around the globe, and could still take hold here — if the people let it be so.

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