Fetterman blasts Oz’s stroke comments in Bethlehem area campaign stop (PHOTOS)

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is welcomed at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman pose for photos at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman greet members of the audience at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Members of an estimated crowd of more than 700 people attend a campaign stop by Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is welcomed at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Gisele Barreto Fetterman, second lady of Pennsylvania, speaks during an appearance at a campaign stop by husband and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

U.S. Rep. Susan Wild and dog Zoey greet Gisele Barreto Fetterman, second lady of Pennsylvania, during an appearance at a campaign stop by husband and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Anna Thomas, Democratic candidate for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, steps up to speak during an appearance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, a Democrat representing the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, speaks at a campaign stop by Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Gisele Barreto Fetterman, second lady of Pennsylvania, speaks during an appearance at a campaign stop by husband and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Brian McHale, with the Lehigh Valley Center for Independent Living, signs remarks by Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, at a campaign stop Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman visited the Lehigh Valley on Saturday to build support for his Democratic candidacy for U.S. Senate in the Nov. 8 election against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Fetterman stepped onstage in Northampton Community College’s Arthur L. Scott Spartan Center in Bethlehem Township to AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” wearing shorts and a black Carhartt hoodie with the sleeves rolled up above his forearm tattoos.

He spoke for a little more than 15 minutes, with a delivery akin to a standup comedian’s and in a higher-pitch voice that belies his 6-foot-8-inch stature. Much of his address focused on the stroke he suffered just prior to winning the Democratic primary and criticism from his celebrity heart surgeon opponent.

“This stroke could have ended my life but I got so lucky, and I’m just so grateful to be here today,” Fetterman, 53, said, asking for a show of hands of those in the audience Saturday who have personally battled a major health issue or seen a loved one go through something like he experienced. “I also pray that you never had your doctor in your life making fun of it, making jokes about it, telling you that you’re not fit to serve or able to do the job. But unfortunately, I have a doctor in my life saying those things.

“If we don’t do what we need to do in the Lehigh Valley, you are going to have a doctor for the next six years together saying those kind of things. Show up, show up.”

Fetterman and Oz, 62, are running to succeed retiring two-term Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican from Lehigh County. Election Day is Nov. 8.

There were plenty of references to Oz’s hometown, listed by his campaign as Huntingdon Valley in Montgomery County. Oz lived in a $2.9 million home in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, for two decades before officially shifting his residence to his in-laws’ home in 2020 then seeking the Senate seat.

“It’s very important to come out and support the candidates that are actually living in your state, that want to run for office and represent you,” NCC paralegal student Lauren Pasculli, of Roseto, said as she was leaving the rally. “It shows that they care.”

Deneen Carreras, of Lehigh Township, also left with the rally having reinforced her support for Democrats this election: “What they believe in, my rights, everything like that ... Social Security, abortion — I mean everything.”

A reporter estimated the crowd Saturday at upwards of 700 people, with Fetterman’s campaign describing it as more than 1,000. Fetterman rallied earlier Saturday in Philadelphia.

Opening remarks were made by Anna Thomas, Democratic challenger to Republican state Rep. Joe Emrick in Northampton County’s 137th Legislative District; Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds; Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure; and U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, a Democrat representing the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. NCC hosted a debate in April between Wild’s Republican challenger this election, Lisa Scheller, and the primary opponent she bested, Kevin Dellicker.

The last to speak before Fetterman, the former mayor of Braddock, was his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, second lady of Pennsylvania.

“No matter where we go, he’s still that small-town mayor who really cares and connects with his community, who is worried about families struggling with gas, or scarcity of jobs, a broken health-care system, the threats of losing basic human rights — like abortion rights,” Barreto Fetterman said. “He’s the same leader who shows up and does the work, and he’s still the same leader who will always stand for what is right even when is standing alone. And now he’s taking that fight to the Senate because he wants to fight for you in D.C.”

Fetterman, who still lives in Allegheny County’s Braddock that is an steel town like Bethlehem, made light of Oz’s August stop in the Lehigh Valley, which included a stop at Musikfest despite parent organization ArtsQuest’s policy prohibiting political candidates from campaigning on the grounds of the annual summertime festival.

“Such a classic tourist gaffe,” Fetterman said.

Oz also shot a short campaign video of an ostensibly everyman appearance at a Lehigh Valley grocery store where he derided the cost of vegetables for crudités, while inside a store whose name he described as the mashed-up Wegner’s, crossing Wegmans and Redner’s Market.

“And I’m the one that had a stroke,” Fetterman said Saturday.

Oz turned that perceived flub into an attack on his opponent, with his campaign saying that if the state’s lieutenant governor “had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke.” This past week, Oz doubled down on his fitness for office, releasing his health records from his New York City physician as he maneuvers to keep questions about his rival’s recovery front and center in the hotly contested campaign.

Turning only briefly to campaign issues that the other speakers had expounded more about, Fetterman pressed those on hand Saturday to turn out and vote in November.

“I am running to be that 51st vote in D.C. … to get good things (to) happen — get rid of the filibuster, codify Roe v. Wade, get rid of this awful, awful, awful minimum wage of $7.25 per hour here — it’s a disgrace,” he said. ”And I am going to make sure that we’re going to fight for the union way of life. ...

“And I’m going to need you all to step up for me, deliver for me and I will deliver to all of you. My ask to you is to send Dr. Oz back to New Jersey and send me to Washington, D.C. Thank you Bethlehem, thank you Lehigh Valley.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.

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