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

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It’s weird to me that the Hershel Walker abortion story is getting wall-to-wall coverage on MSNBC right now, but I’ve seen no mention of the Oz dog-murder story.  Why is that?

[bagelman]

It’s weird to me that the Hershel Walker abortion story is getting wall-to-wall coverage on MSNBC right now, but I’ve seen no mention of the Oz dog-murder story.  Why is that?

The media establishment wants Fetterman to lose because he is a true progressive who defeated their moderate darling Conor Lamb in the primary. The media is also sympathetic to Dr. Oz as he is a TV personality, the fact that he is a long time scam artist who has ruined lives seems less important.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

I don't necessarily buy the "Dems are knifing Fetterman" narrative. I think they just got too overconfident with the race and took their foot off the gas. The caucus likes Fetterman! Peters and Stabenow all but endorsed him in the primary, and the only one really willing to go to bat for Lamb was Manchin.

I'm not really sure why the Oz story isn't getting more play there either. I guess abortion outrage brings in more views?

[Calthrina950]

I don't necessarily buy the "Dems are knifing Fetterman" narrative. I think they just got too overconfident with the race and took their foot off the gas. The caucus likes Fetterman! Peters and Stabenow all but endorsed him in the primary, and the only one really willing to go to bat for Lamb was Manchin.

I'm not really sure why the Oz story isn't getting more play there either. I guess abortion outrage brings in more views?

The abortion story seems to be far more objectionable than the "dog abuse" story, and yes, it is the kind of story that is more sensationalist and more likely to generate ratings for the media.

[coloradocowboi]

Nobody believes Oz personally killed 300 puppies himself.

Some people definitely do and as far as I'm concerned the more Pennsylvania voters who do the better.

Yeah that’s where I’m at too.

Mind you animal testing is not objectively “necessary” and has been controversial in science from the beginning, *and* even tho Oz was not the hand that killed the dogs as the PI he absolutely was responsible in every sense of the word, including legally which is what matters anyway.

But having this discussion about the ethics and practices of animal testing don’t help Oz at any rate because the voters this will turn off are already too stupid to get the nuance. All ppl know is dogs are dead and it’s Dr Oz’s fault. The only remaining question is which and how many voters that would sway.

[wbrocks67]

Oz getting desperate, trying to change the narrative right now to something outlandish

https://twitter.com/justin_sweitzer/status/1577675970521321473

[GeorgiaModerate]

Oz getting desperate, trying to change the narrative right now to something outlandish

(tweet)

That's really reaching.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Fetterman is leading 55/36 in Center Street Pac

[Crumpets]

I'm curious if fhtagn has any takes on this. IIRC even though she's pretty right-wing, animal rights is one of her main causes.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1577682323654561792

[Koharu]

Medical testing on animals is a generally accepted practice. It is legal. The issue isn't that Oz was testing on animals, it was that he broke the law while doing so, leading to animals suffering in ways that are not acceptable. Yes, the headlines are that he killed puppies, but headlines always skew towards what gets the most eyes. The actual issue is that he tested on animals and didn't follow the relatively lenient legal requirements. He tortured animals.

From the Jezebel article: "In the early 2000s, testimony from a whistleblower and veterinarian named Catherine Dell’Orto about Oz’s research detailed extensive suffering inflicted on his team’s canine test subjects, including multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which sets minimum standards of care for dogs, cats, primates, rabbits, and other animals in the possession of animal dealers and laboratories. The law specifically requires researchers and breeders to use pain-relieving drugs or euthanasia on the animals, and not use paralytics without anesthesia, or experiment multiple times on the same animal."

So yeah. It's not about whether or not people are OK with animal testing, it's whether or not people are OK with inflicting undue suffering and, you know, *breaking the law*.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/JonathanTamari/status/1577758866103754752

[BG-NY]

Oz has had a very strong couple of weeks. Around a +5 improvement in internals from both sides. Will it be enough? Maybe.

[wbrocks67]

CNN has picked it up

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1577743701643870223

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1525106022049890306?t=qwFzmxR2PQUp8sgDW7uLyQ&...

What a nice old man. I wonder what he's going to do with the puppy.

[wbrocks67]

Fetterman raised $22M, double the $11M from the last quarter. (Oz raised $10M)

https://twitter.com/justin_sweitzer/status/1578000232348008449

[Torie]

In case you were wondering why Fetterman's lead is fading away, this might provide you with the answer. Yes, you guessed it, the guy lost 10 points with college educated voters.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fetterman-oz-polls/

[Babeuf]

Fetterman raised $22M, double the $11M from the last quarter. (Oz raised $10M)

https://twitter.com/justin_sweitzer/status/1578000232348008449

Plus the $7M self funded from Oz, so $17M for him.

[wbrocks67]

In case you were wondering why Fetterman's lead is fading away, this might provide you with the answer. Yes, you guessed it, the guy lost 10 points with college educated voters.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fetterman-oz-polls/

538 is better than this - they quite literally just cherrypick one poll for this demographic. If they were going to an average of all recent polls, that would be something, but going off of one could easily just be variation. Also, to boot, Oz was at 36% in that first Fox poll. He had nowhere to go but up.

[Pollster]

I moderated a focus group last night of "persuasion target voters" (I'm not running the project, I only stepped in to moderate after my colleague caught COVID, so I don't know how these participants were defined/recruited though all began undecided in the Senate race) and the crime ads against Fetterman came up.

The ads really didn't seem to be working on these less ideological voters who were/are generally more passive observers and participants in politics. They all seemed to agree that the ads are tonally over the top and that they had seen too much of them (oversaturation, essentially). What surprised me, though, was that they seemed to see the attacks as intended to harden opinions rather than to drive them ("I think if you are the type of person who believes this stuff you've probably already made up your mind" was one standout quote) and unpersuasive in their content ("He just wants to let people out of jail? I mean, come on"). The negative ads about his not paying taxes were more effective - they spoke more to his character and not sharing their values - but the crime ads had so thoroughly poisoned the well that after all the negative ads every participant was still undecided.

You should never extrapolate from qualitative research (focus groups are directional/informative, not statistically significant) but this is a strong validator of my working theory that these ad blitzes have fixed Oz's issues with the Republican base but not much beyond that.

[wbrocks67]

I moderated a focus group last night of "persuasion target voters" (I'm not running the project, I only stepped in to moderate after my colleague caught COVID, so I don't know how these participants were defined/recruited though all began undecided in the Senate race) and the crime ads against Fetterman came up.

The ads really didn't seem to be working on these less ideological voters who were/are generally more passive observers and participants in politics. They all seemed to agree that the ads are tonally over the top and that they had seen too much of them (oversaturation, essentially). What surprised me, though, was that they seemed to see the attacks as intended to harden opinions rather than to drive them ("I think if you are the type of person who believes this stuff you've probably already made up your mind" was one standout quote) and unpersuasive in their content ("He just wants to let people out of jail? I mean, come on"). The negative ads about his not paying taxes were more effective - they spoke more to his character and not sharing their values - but the crime ads had so thoroughly poisoned the well that after all the negative ads every participant was still undecided.

You should never extrapolate from qualitative research (focus groups are directional/informative, not statistically significant) but this is a strong validator of my working theory that these ad blitzes have fixed Oz's issues with the Republican base but not much beyond that.

This is really interesting, thank you for this. Makes a lot of sense, and probably key part of the reason why Oz's #s have ticked up - just that, those ads (and naturally getting closer to the election) have helped him shore up some of the GOP base.

Could also point to why on the overall electorate, Fetterman apparently still has a lead on crime (Monmouth) and leads among Indies.

Political ads tend to usually be over the top, but I'm pretty sure I said in this thread weeks ago when these ads started to first pop up that they were even more over the top than usual. To the point of when you saw half of them, you would just have to laugh at how ridiculous they clearly were.

[wbrocks67]

Fetterman can actually call this a win. I remember thinking it was a bit random for him to bring this up back in August.

https://twitter.com/the_vello/status/1578098805290975232

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1578111641815851008?s=20&t=pCUp96lx...

[Horus]

TBH, even with control of the senate at stake, I would vote against the Democrat if it came out they were killing dogs (or ordering such) for research. I get that everyone is partisan af these days but I'd at least like to think that if you are a dog lover, you'd draw the line at needlessly euthanizing these precious creatures:

But that’s the thing….he just wasn’t. He was conducting medical research trials on important potentially life-saving heart medications as a research director at a major medical university. Almost 100% of such trials end up killing animals.

Now we can debate the ethics of animal testing during such trials, but at no point has it been suggested either that this was an unusual practice in the field or that Oz was personally involved in the euthanasia of the test subjects. The worst allegations are that some of his researchers did not follow proper guidelines when euthanizing the subjects, an extremely minor violation that carries a 2000$ fine.

This story may as well have been ‘Oz was an important medical researcher at a major institution for 21 years; while there, several staffers got speeding tickets’. The penalties in terms of fines are similar, the only difference between the two is that the speeding tickets might make someone lose their license.

If anything I am impressed that he was a medical researcher at Columbia. I honestly thought he was just a TV personality selling questionable tonics and elixirs to unsuspecting housewives. My opinion of him based on this story has gone up significantly and anyone who thinks otherwise honestly just has no idea how the scientific process works or how medicine is tested and developed.

Looks like compucomp came out of retirement just to like this post 🤣

[Progressive Pessimist]

Fetterman can actually call this a win. I remember thinking it was a bit random for him to bring this up back in August.

https://twitter.com/the_vello/status/1578098805290975232

I don't think there is any doubt that he influenced Biden here. So that is a pretty big boon for him.