Rarely will one see this much water carried at one time for a political candidate from a supposed journalistic outlet. And in fact, one can’t actually see it unless they buy a subscription to New York Magazine, the elite Manhattan publication that spent a lot of pixels and social-media effort to convince everyone that John Fetterman is not (a) elite, (b) effete, and (c) out of touch.

We can certainly stipulate to (b) — Fetterman doesn’t come across as effete at all. That isn’t just due to his impressive size, physicality, or tattoos, although those are contributing factors. “Effete” isn’t a word that springs to mind, however, for someone who chased down an innocent black man with a shotgun for running through his neighborhood, after all. Nor for someone who vandalized a black business.

As for the rest, it’s tough to argue without reading the article itself. Normally, criticism of such an article without a careful read would be a fraught exercise, but thankfully New York Magazine posted a string of tweets laying out their argument, so we can at least chew over that much. Our colleagues at Twitchy have captured the thread laying out the case for Fetterman as a real man of the people, a man they claim has “attained folkloric stature.”

Er … what? For what? He barely showed up as lieutenant governor, as the Associated Press pointed out last week. Does this sound “folkloric” or anything close to it?

Records from Fetterman’s four years in office, however, offer a different portrait of his time in the $179,000-a-year elected job. They show Fetterman typically kept a light work schedule and was often absent from state business, including presiding over the state Senate, which is one of his chief duties, according to an Associated Press review of his daily calendars and attendance records.

The review found that Fetterman’s daily schedule was blank during roughly one-third of workdays from January 2019, when he first took office, to May of this year, when he suffered a serious stroke. Even on days where his schedule showed he was active, a typical work day for Fetterman lasted between four and five hours, the records show.

The findings, which focus entirely on his tenure before his stroke, are notable because Fetterman points to his time as lieutenant governor as a leading credential in his Senate campaign. And as his bid for a seat that could swing the Senate majority becomes more competitive, some Democrats privately worry that Fetterman is proving a lackluster candidate and losing ground in the campaign.

It sounds more like the portrait of a dilettante … which is precisely what Fetterman has been most of his adult life. The graduate of the very “elite” Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (master’s degree in 1999) lived off of his parent’s money for the entire thirteen years he served as mayor of Braddock, despite the job having “few formal responsibilities,” according to PennLive.

Just the idea that a news outlet — even a point-of-view publication like New York Mag — would declare a politician “folkloric” at all creeps into cheerleading mode. For a politician with as few achievements as Fetterman, it sounds almost cult-like in its hyperbole.

Next, NYM argues that Fetterman is “one of them” when it comes to blue-collar voters. Fetterman pulls down a $217,000 salary for showing up part-time at best for his public-service job. I’d guess that’s not an experience that many blue-collar or white-collar workers in Pennsylvania experience, nor will they relate to the folkloric experience of sponging off their parents for a thirteen-year stretch out of choice rather than necessity.

Now let’s look at this tweet in its entirety:

As summer turned to fall, Fetterman returned to the trail in person, powering through his convalescence at rallies and via television and newspaper interviews, his physical condition visibly improving https://t.co/Xt5xBoEok3

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) October 10, 2022

Again, one has to wonder what version of reality NYM experiences — or whether they’re just trying to spin one for their readers. Fetterman’s return to the campaign trail has been fitful at best, and his communications are clearly impaired and not noticeably improving so far. He’s barely engaging with voters and is refusing to engage at all with Mehmet Oz in a debate until near the end of the month, even though Pennsylvanians started voting two weeks ago.

This looks much more like “folklore” than actual reporting. This might be considered a bit shameless coming from a campaign — well, maybe not these days — but it’s rather stunning to see a media outlet spin this hard as supposedly honest analysis from an established platform.

Perhaps the essay itself has more nuance. From New York Magazine’s Twitter thread, however, there’s no reason to pay for this shilling when one can get it from Team Fetterman for free.