PHILADELPHIA — In his ads, and much of the public imagination, John Fetterman is a tattooed everyman from a rugged steel city outside Pittsburgh.
The phrase “blue collar tough guy” flashes across one of his TV ads as a grim-faced Fetterman poses before billowing smokestacks. “He’s looked different and been different his entire life,” a narrator says.
That persona has long irked Republicans, who say Fetterman’s distinctive visual cues leave an impression that he’s more working class — and more moderate — than he really is. Now, as Fetterman campaigns as Pennsylvania’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Republicans are aiming to challenge his story and undercut one of his greatest political strengths. They say his image obscures his roots in a comfortable, suburban family that provided his financial security deep into adulthood.
