What the Pennsylvania Media Is Saying About the Senate Debate

Pennsylvania voters are navigating through a vortex of headlines, commentary and opinion page takeaways about Tuesday night’s Senate debate between the celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat who is recovering from a stroke that he had in May.

Mr. Fetterman lumbered through the hourlong encounter with his rival, a performance that dominated the news media’s coverage of the debate in a race that could determine control of the divided Senate.

Here is what pundits in Pennsylvania are saying:

Sharp critiques from The Philadelphia Inquirer’s opinion staff

A panel of columnists and other contributors was less than charitable in its reviews of both candidates, giving Mr. Fetterman an average score of 4.3 out of 10 and Dr. Oz a score of 4.1.

Here’s some of what the panelists said:

• “The only good thing you can say about Fetterman’s performance is that he didn’t put on airs. He is authentically inarticulate.” — Jonathan Zimmerman

• “Rather than counter his reputation as a snake-oil salesman, Oz leaned into it for most of the debate, with slick answers that were as empty as the diet pills that he once promoted (despite his ridiculous dodging answer) on TV.” — Will Bunch

• “Fetterman’s stumbling and verbal gaffes made the debate a complete cringefest from beginning to end.” — Jenice Armstrong

• “For all his years on TV, Oz came across as a fast-talking used car salesman.” — Paul Davies

Pundits online and on the radio: ‘Painful’ vs. ‘slippery’

Michael Smerconish, a Philadelphia lawyer-turned-political commentator for CNN and SiriusXM, on Wednesday panned Mr. Fetterman’s long-awaited return to the debate stage and called it “painful.”

“Fetterman didn’t want to debate,” Mr. Smerconish said on his radio show. “Now we know why. He wanted to run out the clock.”

Mr. Smerconish said that he felt sorry for Mr. Fetterman and that Dr. Oz’s demeanor gave him pause.

“Oz was slippery,” he said.

Dom Giordano, a conservative talk radio host in Philadelphia, was even more blunt about how Mr. Fetterman handled the debate.

“Can any reasonable person say Fetterman is capable?” Mr. Giordano wrote on Tuesday night on Twitter.

Still, Marty Griffin, a Pittsburgh-area talk radio host, wondered how much the debate would sway voters.

“Does Fetterman’s condition matter?” Mr. Griffin said on Tuesday night on Twitter. “I’d say no! Voters will vote in their lanes!”

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review took both candidates to task

Calling the debate “chaotic” in a headline, the newspaper focused on Mr. Fetterman’s verbal delivery and Dr. Oz’s attacking style in its coverage. It called out Mr. Fetterman’s dodge of “questions about past statements made in opposition to fracking” and wrote that he “appeared to hit a stride and speak better when his answers were longer.”

As for Oz: “He spoke frantically, but cohesively, and consistently brought his answers back to attacking Fetterman.”

‘Fetterman struggles’: Penn Live/The Patriot-News

That’s how the headline from The Patriot News characterized his performance. The newspaper in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, where Tuesday night’s debate was held, wrote:

“In what was considered a pivotal moment for the heated contest, Fetterman’s consistently stilted speech and jumbled sentences in the rapid-fire debate format are likely to fuel more questions about his health following a May 13 stroke.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found the debate heavier on attacks than substantive policy

Neither candidate alleviated the newspaper’s lingering questions — for Mr. Fetterman, concerns about his health, and for Dr. Oz, his promotion of certain medical treatments and products that critics say are risky and unproven.

Sound bites aplenty, but skimpy on specifics, The Pennsylvania Capital-Star says

The nonpartisan news nonprofit described the tone of the debate as nasty and reported that former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden loomed substantially over the clash.