Hold My Beer: John Fetterman, Tim Ryan, and the "Everyman"

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Article by Lorenzo Levy, Image via Google Search

The so-called “beer question” remains a critical factor in political campaigns.  For those unfamiliar, the premise of the beer question is that voters tend to prefer candidates that they would want to have a beer with, overshadowing any of that candidate’s moral or policy shortcomings in the eyes of voters.  In the 2022 Senate elections, the beer question came up in numerous races but was especially relevant in the Senate races in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where being an authentic Pennsylvanian or Ohioan was a major issue in the campaigns.

     The Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania was Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.  Standing six feet and nine inches tall and most often found in shorts and a hoodie, it is clear that Fetterman was making minimal effort to downplay his “man of the people” aesthetic.  Despite being in one of the most difficult states in one of the most difficult years for a Democrat running for Senate, Fetterman was still able to win his election by a larger margin than President Biden, a Pennsylvania native, did in 2020, turning out new Democratic voters and crossover Republican and Independent voters alike.  Not only did Fetterman have to run against Dr. Oz, a huge TV celebrity with international fame and recognition, but he also suffered a stroke, prohibiting him from campaigning in-person for months and making public speaking and debates more difficult.

     What is even more baffling from a political observer’s perspective is that there are significant parts of Fetterman’s biography that would seem to diminish his ability to market himself as an everyman.  Fetterman grew up in a relatively wealthy suburb, despite his stereotypically urban tattooed biker-esque aesthetic.  He went to Harvard, so he could be cast as part of the right’s “coastal educated elite” trope, alienating him from crucial non-college educated voters.  Fetterman has also been in politics since 2006, as the mayor of Braddock, PA from 2006 to 2019 and Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 2019 to 2023.  There are few things voters love more than an “outsider” (e.g. Donald Trump).  However, it must be said that most of the time that voters are concerned about “insiders” is when they are Washington insiders, which cannot be said for Fetterman, whose experience is at the local and statewide levels.

     Still, Fetterman had to overcome a few obstacles to achieve his everyman reputation.  Photographic evidence shows that John Fetterman did not start dressing in his casual fashion only for his Senate campaign—it was just how he dressed.  It seems unlikely that voters wouldn’t see through a candidate who tried to dress up like Fetterman just for the campaign optics.  

     Just as important to John Fetterman’s cultivation of his image was the contrast he could make with his opponent, Dr. Oz.  Dr. Oz was unable to attack Fetterman effectively for being a hypocritical everyman.  Oz couldn’t attack Fetterman for going to Harvard because so did he.  Fetterman might not have been poor, but he certainly did not have eleven mansions and a net worth in the hundreds of millions.  The Fetterman campaign, especially its digital department, was also able to carry out various viral attacks on Oz being out of touch, most notably the fact that his status as a Pennsylvania resident was questionable at best, in contrast to the born and raised Pennsylvania that was Fetterman.


     Ultimately, Fetterman’s strategy was successful and sent him to the US Senate, but the same cannot be said for Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio Tim Ryan.  Although he wore shorts and hoodies far less often on the campaign trail than Fetterman, Ryan’s campaign made an intentional effort to show him at Ohio sports games and throwing footballs in ads.  Like Fetterman, this was not perceived as a disingenuous ploy to pander to voters, because he did it way too often for it to be purely in a strategic interest.  Ryan was also recruited to play football at Youngstown State University way before his political career to assuage any remaining doubt on the legitimacy of his claims to like football.

     Also like Fetterman, Ryan’s claims to Ohioan authenticity were buttressed by a contrast with his opponent, J.D. Vance.  Although he grew up in Ohio, Vance left the state at a relatively young age and got his JD at the elite coastal Ivy League Yale Law School, in contrast to Tim Ryan getting his JD at the significantly less elite University of New Hampshire.  After Yale, Vance fell into the pocket of the far-right German-born California crypto billionaire Peter Thiel.  

    In 2022 despite previously being a staunch “never-Trumper,” J.D.Vance received a Trump endorsement, carrying him through his primary and helping him tremendously in the general election.  Interestingly enough, Republican Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel was also running for Senate in 2022.  In many regards, Mandel would have been the more likely Trump endorsee, being a Trump loyalist since 2016 and having prior political experience at the statewide level.  Reportedly, the reason Trump chose Vance over Mandel to endorse came down to the beer question.  Trump reportedly called Mandel “a charisma free weirdo and dork,” according to aides close to Trump.

     Tim Ryan used Vance’s spineless capitulation to Trump despite his strong past objections to attack him.  Ryan famously stated in a debate that Ohio needed an “ass kicker” rather than an “ass kisser,” in reference to Vance.  This moment elucidates a key component of the “beer” strategy in especially Tim Ryan’s campaign: masculinity.  To a typical American man, “ass kissing” is a sign of unmanly weakness.  Given that the sensitive, forgiving Democrats are stereotypically labeled as being less “masculine” and macho than the gun-toting, tough-on-crime Republicans, Ryan’s strategy does not appear to be illogical.  

     Accordingly, Ryan ran a uniquely independent, non-ass kissing campaign, so to speak.  He has a history of challenging the positions of Democratic leaders, such as calling out Biden for his student debt cancellation, and even challenging Nancy Pelosi for the position of Speaker of the House.  Even the issues he brought up in his campaign signified his masculine independence.  The mainstream non-conservative media and a significant number of Democratic candidates focused on January 6th and culture war issues about supposed critical race theory and pronouns, but Ryan ran his campaign centered around economic populism.  Economic populism is in fact the only strategy that has sent a Democrat to the Senate (Sherrod Brown) from Ohio in this millennium.

     Masculinity undoubtedly played a part in Fetterman’s campaign as well.  The fact that Fetterman is six feet and nine inches with tattoos and gruff facial hair definitely paints him as more of a masculine man than the pee-drinking, clean-shaven, alternative medicine peddling, disgraced TV show quack that is Dr. Oz.

     Overall, Fetterman won his race, but Ryan lost his.  This cannot be construed, however, as a sign that fielding relatable everyman types like Tim Ryan is an ineffective strategy in general.  Ohio went to Donald Trump by over 8 points in 2020, so the Democratic establishment did not allocate as much money or attention to it as they did in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seats that they at least believed they could flip from Republican to Democrat.  It also did not help that J.D. Vance had the backing of billionaires like Peter Thiel and flesh-vessels like Mitch McConnell.  In other words, if Tim Ryan ran himself as a candidate in total lockstep with Biden and less focused on making the race about masculinity, Democrats could have lost the Ohio Senate race by an even larger margin. Something else to consider is that even though Ryan lost, through his campaign, he generated enough enthusiasm among voters to win two very competitive House seats in Ohio (Greg Landsman in OH-1 and Marcy Kaptur in OH-9) on his coattails in an incredibly tough environment for House Democratic candidates, whose races are most often defined solely by party affiliation, not candidate quality.

     Although the beer question model has understandably come under scrutiny for its prioritization of male voters and candidates, the greater issue of relatability can be applicable for candidates of any gender.  That is one reason why so many female candidates campaign on being mothers.  That being said, female candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or more obscure female candidates like Jamie McLeod-Skinner have made the case for their relatability extremely well based on issues of class and down-to-earth personalities.  Particularly for Rep. Cortez, her relatively young age plays a huge role in making her relatable to young voters in a way that older candidates are simply incapable of.  

     It is not a controversial statement to claim that a healthy majority of Americans outside the 1%, regardless of party, believe that government should have the interest of the common person in mind.  The US is not a direct democracy, so electing government officials who will represent the interests of the common people is a near universal motive behind voting behavior.  The 2022 Senate elections have demonstrated that if you want your candidate to get elected, you have a much greater chance with a Fetterman than an Oz.

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