RANDOM DELI COUNTER, NORRISTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA (The Daily Whatever Press)—Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Asskicking) told Politico on Tuesday that she’s “considering” a 2028 run for John Fetterman’s Senate seat, which is the most polite way a mother of three from Montgomery County has ever said “get your stanky hoodie, loser.”
“I’m going to be considering it,” she said. Then, in case anybody in Carhartt's thought she was kidding: “When I say consider, nothing is lighthearted.”
She wasn’t kidding. Dean, 67, won her fifth House term last week, and she said her worries come down to “really, two things, which is his family and his health,” plus the fact that she is “very disappointed in his activity as a senator and in his votes.” She didn’t give a timeline. She said she’d talk it over with her family first.
I am not a mom, but isn’t some weak-ass Susan Collins concern trolling. That’s mother-level “you’re about to get your ass beat, bucko” kinda talk. If we’ve learned anything about her in her time in Congress, it’s that Madeleine Dean does not come to play.
Take a number
Dean isn’t first in line. In fact, she isn’t even first this week.
On Monday, Ahmed Moor, a 42-year-old Gaza-born writer and businessman from West Philadelphia, became the first Democrat to formally launch a campaign for the seat. “I’m running to end the war in Iran,” he wrote, and “to promote the dignity agenda: free healthcare, free childcare, and affordable housing.”
Behind him, Rep. Chris Deluzio of the Pittsburgh suburbs says he’s giving it “serious thought,” adding, “If I’m going to do it, I’m doing it to win, and I’m going to win.” Former Rep. Conor Lamb, who finished a distant second to Fetterman in the 2022 primary, keeps getting asked. And the Pennsylvania Working Families Party, which backed Fetterman in 2022, announced a year ago that it would recruit someone to beat him, then summed up its entire strategic plan in 4 words: “We’re primarying John Fetterman.”
Somebody get the man one of those little red deli ticket dispensers. The line is out the door and wrapped around the hoagie case. You want to run against Fetterman, too? Grab a number and wait your turn, punk.
Fetterman hasn’t said whether he’s even running again. He did say, at the Texas Tribune Festival in September, “I’ve said I have no path as a Republican. That’s a fact.” Weird thing for a Democrat to say, Johnny. That same month, he beamed in by video to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas to introduce Sen. Dave McCormick as a “great friend.”
No path as a Republican, but a pretty clear path to their convention, though.
Somewhere, a gray hoodie in a Senate cloakroom is getting nervous, sensing its time in the spotlight might be coming to an end.
Why it should be Dean
I want to say something sincere about Madeleine Dean, and then I’ll go back to swearing.