PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

[GALeftist]

Will be interesting to see how much of the vote % 3rd-parties get. PA tends to have an interestingly high chunk of voters for these when they end up on the ballot.

2020:
Prez - 1.15%
AG - 2.81%
Auditor General - 4.21%
State Treasurer - 3.41%

And that was with only two 3rd parties on the ballot, let alone 4.

I'd be shocked if it was more than 3%, personally. The 2018 Senate race only had 1.64%.

Well the reason I asked is that there seems to be a relatively large number of right wing voters who disapprove of Oz, so I think right-wing third parties could be significant in this race.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1555569686544322561

This man should be in federal prison for that graphic. What the actual hell. Why.

[GALeftist]

Lmfao. TV Snake Doctor is such a real, salf-of-the-earth profession, unlike the coastal elitist globalist position of Mayor of Braddock.

[GALeftist]

Oz's team must be scrambling for a new desperate attack other than "Fetterman is missing."

From what I've seen I am 90% sure it will be "coastal elitist Fetterman lived off his parents' money while he was mayor." This seems moronic to me, because it just gives him an opening to talk about Braddock more, which is a pretty compelling part of his story, and I don't really think there's a viable way to define Fetterman as the out of touch wealthy elite between the two of them at this point. The real example of political malpractice though was the stupid basement Fetterman attack, which A. probably didn't work, B. to the extent that it did was always on a timer unless Fetterman keeled over and died, and C. is basically exploiting your opponent's ill health which could have easily backfired.

If I were Oz's campaign manager, I'd tell him to cut it out with the stupid crap and just run a simple campaign focusing on tying Fetterman to Biden and national Democrats and positioning yourself as a reasonable Republican who will bring balance back to Washington. In this cycle, a generic R is favored Pennsylvania; just be as close to generic R as possible. It is that simple.

[GALeftist]

Thought 💭 I'd do some grocery shopping 🛒, I'm at 🤔 Wegner's ❓, and my wife 👰 wants some vegetables 🥬 for a crudité 🇫🇷, all right 👌❓ So, here's 📍 a broccoli 🥦, that's two 2️⃣ bucks 💵, not 🚫 a ton 🏋️ of broccoli 🥦 there; there's an asparagus 🥬, that's four 4️⃣ dollars 💵; yep, carrots 🥕, that's four 4️⃣ more ➕ dollars 💵, that's ten 🔟 dollars 💵 ❗ of vegetables 🥬 there, and then, we 👫 need some, guacamole 🥑, that's four 4️⃣ dollars 💵 more ➕, and, she 💁‍♀️ loves ❤️ salsa 🍅🌶️, yeah 👍, salsa 🍅🌶️ there, SIX 6️⃣ DOLLARS 💵❗❓ Must be a shortage of salsa 🍅🌶️❗ Guys 👨, that's twenty 2️⃣0️⃣ dollars 💵❗ for a crudité 🇫🇷, and this doesn't 🚫 include the tequila 🥃❗ I mean, that's outrageous 😡❗ And we've got Joe Biden 👴🏻 to thank 🙏 for this.

[GALeftist]

> Accused of being out-of-state elite weirdo bc of multiple homes by opponent
> Argue that you bootstrapped your way to buying your homes, plural
> Argue that saying you have 10 homes is inaccurate because 8 of them are "properties" (?)
> "Debate me"

Perfect. No notes

[GALeftist]

Did Oz delete that one?

https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1560065732456714241

Still up!

[GALeftist]

What a disaster dude

[GALeftist]

I guess maybe someone told him he has nothing to lose so he might as well go for the stroke thing in the most bombastic way possible and hope he gets some of the Trump fairy dust? Which strikes me as pretty misguided. He's no less than a modest underdog running in a state like PA in a Biden midterm even if he does literally nothing, no matter what the polls say. Why on Earth would you roll the dice like this

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1564329063518453762

DEBATE ME DEBATE ME WHY WONT YOU DEBATE ME IVE PROPOSED TEN MORBILLION DEBATES THE FIRST ONE IS IN HALF AN HOUR WHY WONT YOU DEBATE ME

Spare me. Until I see you people in the GA-SEN thread demanding that Herschel Walker show up to a debate I don't want any more posts on this topic from y'all. He's recovering from a stroke, for Pete's sake, have some decency.

[GALeftist]

Am I still a corporatist neoliberal traitor for expressing concern that Fetterman's stroke will handicap him on the campaign trail?

You are still a "corporatist neoliberal traitor," as you put it, but not for that reason

[GALeftist]

LMAO Toomey is coping and seething

https://twitter.com/CityAndStatePA/status/1567209970512314368

This is like the one race where Rs should *definitely* avoid calling their opponent a coastal elitist liberal lmao

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/Jezebel/status/1567242496497045504

........what?

EDIT:

My daughters hate my smell.

Debating making this my new signature

[GALeftist]

I think the more relevant issue tbh is that Dr. Oz's daughters apparently think he smells lol

[GALeftist]

Based on the replies, I was expecting to hear Fetterman literally gasping for air and rambling unintelligibly. I actually watched the clip, and… he sounds a bit tired I guess? And made one slip up or two? This does not seem like some damning sound bite that will cost him 4-5% of the vote like some are acting like it will, particularly if it was just in that particular moment that he slipped up once and the rest of his speech was fine. To be clear, Fetterman doesn’t have this race in the bag and he never has, but this feels like quite the overreaction. Not that this sort of thing isn’t par for the course for Atlas.

Yeah, I mean, we've all seen him speaking clearly elsewhere, it's obvious that his brain is still functioning properly to some degree at a bare minimum. I'm obviously not a doctor but my uneducated opinion is that this seems like post-stroke aphasia; as long as it doesn't get worse to the point that communication is extremely difficult or impossible, I don't see why it would hinder his performance as a US Senator, and it's definitely better than a lot of other things which can happen after strokes, like amnesia or confusion. (I'd also like to note that this is yet another example of people holding Herschel Walker to a wildly different standard.)

[GALeftist]

So called moderate Brian Fitzpatrick has endorsed Oz. Would be nice if the DCCC would put some money into his race.

That won't make a difference for Fitzpatrick. He could probably get away with endorsing Mastriano too.

Yeah, that seat sadly won't be competitive unless and until there's a blue wave on par with 2018 and maybe not even then (or he retires).

[GALeftist]

Just saw an Oz ad during the Eagles' game (RIP Carson Wentz) pelting Fetterman for his support of student loan forgiveness.  

During one scene, the ad showed a steel worker with a hard hat wiping his brow and decrying that hard-working tax payers would have to pay off the student loans of "gender studies" majors and "bartenders with blue hair".  

I have mixed feelings about student loan forgiveness, but the ad's message that only blue-collar workers pay their taxes was equal parts laughable and enraging.  

Seems like a really good message to me? The point is that the tax dollars of people who don't have a college education (generally lower to middle class) is going to people who do have a college eduction (generally middle to upper class). I don't think the message is aimed towards you, as you are someone with many years of higher education.

In that sense, the tax dollars of everyone go to everyone else, no? Like Jeff Bezos uses the same roads that my taxes pay for. This seems like a silly way to view taxes. It is still true that lower income people are paying a lower net percentage of taxes and it's also true that student debt forgiveness is coming disproportionately from taxes on college grads.

[GALeftist]

Infrastructure is an important expenditure by the government because it is the most efficient way of pooling enough resources to fund massive projects that might not be initially profitable.


Bailing out people for student loan debt that they choose to pick up is incredibly stupid. They should pay their damn loans. Why should people who choose not to go to college be on the hook for other people's choices?

Why should I be on the hook for people who wouldn't be able to afford privatized infrastructure to free ride off my tax dollars? Simple, it's because government should decide policy based on what produces the best outcome, not based off what appeases some random person's frankly arbitrary idea of justice.

[GALeftist]

I will never understand what the incentive structures are to ignore reality in a race and insist that your chosen candidate is running an amazing campaign when anyone can see that that isn't the case. This is Atlas, you're not going to harm the Oz campaign by admitting that he's a bad candidate.

[GALeftist]

Anyways, I'd like to take this thread back down to reality and say that not much has changed here. One big reason for this is that, even if you can see some pro-Oz movement in the polling if you squint (which imo comes with a big asterisk, if it exists at all, and still hasn't managed to get Oz a lead in a poll so far), the Mastriano campaign has imploded to a degree which I suspect no one but legit Dem wishcasters foresaw. The man is barely campaigning. This is important because Oz remains unpopular with the base, and that's likely to at least have negative implications for Republican turnout vs. Democratic turnout (some suppositions to the contrary notwithstanding, I have yet to see even a smidgen of data suggesting that Fetterman is unpopular with the Democratic base). Despite all my memeing about Elk County, it's also not impossible that Fetterman just straight up cuts into Oz's margins in important GOP counties. Just look at PA-SEN 2016: Toomey was held to a <2 point win despite winning Bucks, Dauphin, and even Chester precisely because McGinty cut into his margins in now-crucial GOP areas like NEPA and Greater Pittsburgh. And McGinty was hardly a WWC whisperer!

Oz's answer to this quandary, or so I have been told, was that the base would at least show up to vote for Mastriano, who they do legitimately seem to like, and vote for Oz while they were at it. It's possible, for example, that this dynamic with Trump might have saved Toomey in 2016. However, as the days tick by and Mastriano continues to flounder, that dynamic looks like an increasingly small part of the picture. So I'm left wondering, even if I accept that some things are going Oz's way (which, again, I'm not sure that this isn't just wishful thinking), isn't it true that his having to build his own credibility with the base rather than free riding off Mastriano's, along with the PAGOP's seemingly having punted on the gubernatorial race all together, are detriments which have only gotten worse?

To be clear, in my mind, this race remains Tilt D, closer to Lean than Tossup. At the end of the day, it is still a midterm, and it is not unprecedented or even unusual for subpar candidates to skate by through sheer fundamentals. Oz could very much still win. But my thinking is, when one candidate has obvious detriments with respect to the base, has failed to lead a single poll since winning the primary, and their best points in their favor are that they're losing polls by single digits now as opposed to double and a supposed suburban appeal which might not exist and which might not be enough to win anyway – well, it's obvious who's favored.

[GALeftist]

Anyways, I'd like to take this thread back down to reality and say that not much has changed here. One big reason for this is that, even if you can see some pro-Oz movement in the polling if you squint (which imo comes with a big asterisk, if it exists at all, and still hasn't managed to get Oz a lead in a poll so far), the Mastriano campaign has imploded to a degree which I suspect no one but legit Dem wishcasters foresaw. The man is barely campaigning. This is important because Oz remains unpopular with the base, and that's likely to at least have negative implications for Republican turnout vs. Democratic turnout (some suppositions to the contrary notwithstanding, I have yet to see even a smidgen of data suggesting that Fetterman is unpopular with the Democratic base). Despite all my memeing about Elk County, it's also not impossible that Fetterman just straight up cuts into Oz's margins in important GOP counties. Just look at PA-SEN 2016: Toomey was held to a <2 point win despite winning Bucks, Dauphin, and even Chester precisely because McGinty cut into his margins in now-crucial GOP areas like NEPA and Greater Pittsburgh. And McGinty was hardly a WWC whisperer!

Oz's answer to this quandary, or so I have been told, was that the base would at least show up to vote for Mastriano, who they do legitimately seem to like, and vote for Oz while they were at it. It's possible, for example, that this dynamic with Trump might have saved Toomey in 2016. However, as the days tick by and Mastriano continues to flounder, that dynamic looks like an increasingly small part of the picture. So I'm left wondering, even if I accept that some things are going Oz's way (which, again, I'm not sure that this isn't just wishful thinking), isn't it true that his having to build his own credibility with the base rather than free riding off Mastriano's, along with the PAGOP's seemingly having punted on the gubernatorial race all together, are detriments which have only gotten worse?

To be clear, in my mind, this race remains Tilt D, closer to Lean than Tossup. At the end of the day, it is still a midterm, and it is not unprecedented or even unusual for subpar candidates to skate by through sheer fundamentals. Oz could very much still win. But my thinking is, when one candidate has obvious detriments with respect to the base, has failed to lead a single poll since winning the primary, and their best points in their favor are that they're losing polls by single digits now as opposed to double and a supposed suburban appeal which might not exist and which might not be enough to win anyway – well, it's obvious who's favored.

The gap between Oz and Mastriano grows by the day. I think Oz has recovered by a few points, although he’s still clearly trailing Fetterman by a decent margin.

Oz must hope that Mastriano can serve as the lighting rod for anti-GOP sentiment and that he can look reasonable in comparison. If there are a lot of voters who view both parties unfavorably, there could be a lot of vote splitters where Biden disapproving independents can protect abortion rights and punish election denialism in voting for Shapiro and punish Biden for the economy by voting for Oz.

I think this is why congressional Republicans did well down ballot under Trump but worse on their own. When Trump was on the ballot, swing voters could discharge their anger by voting for Biden and then feel more comfortable voting R down ballot.

Perhaps, but then again, if Oz is sufficiently unpopular then they could achieve that "balance" by voting GOP for House races (or, in the case of the Republican base, perhaps even governor). This seems like a plausible turn of events to me but far from the modal outcome as of now pending more data.

[GALeftist]

Gonna start just saying Stacey Abrams has gained momentum with zero data because I want it to be right

[GALeftist]

Even if the momentum is (theoretically) shifting because of the environment, I don’t know how you can objectively call the Oz campaign anything but an unmitigated disaster.

Oz himself is the disaster; his campaign has been well above par except releasing the crudité video, which was extremely overblown by very desperate opposing campaign.

Steps to run an above par campaign:

- Mock your opponent for having parental financial assistance to compensate for the low pay of public service while your candidate is worth hundreds of millions
- Mock your opponent's stroke recovery in your debate proposals
- Tie your opponent to Bernie Sanders rather than Joe Biden
- Allow your candidate to step on the abortion landmine
- Generic crime messaging which literally every Republican trots out

Seriously, I can't think of much else about the Oz campaign. What exactly have they done that's so masterful or even meaningfully different in a positive way from any other Senate campaign?

[GALeftist]

This is giving VA-Gov white supremacist allegations vibes.

I don't think this will end up moving the needle much unless it gets picked up by a big PA newspaper but this is delusional lol

[GALeftist]

Huh. Might make a difference after all. Not an awesome headline for Oz, to say the least.