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

[UncleSam]

I don't want to nominate Lamb. We don't need another Sinema.

I have a feeling by Jan 1, 2023 Dems will be longing for another Sinema in this seat. I really don’t see Ds doing well here in a Biden midterm, though if the Rs own-goal with their nominee that’ll be a different story.

I’m sure I’m in the minority here but I think the smart money is on Tilt R in a Parnell-Fetterman or Fitzpatrick-Fetterman race.

[UncleSam]

Why is Bartos the first person to put this ad together? Seems like something Lamb should’ve run last year.

In a weird way though this kind of helps Parnell. Scandals have a way of fading over time, and voters get annoyed if you keep bringing them up. If Bartos runs with this for the next six months then a lot of voters will care less about it in the general.

Dude seems crazy though, hopefully he just straight loses the primary somehow because tbh this board massively overrates D chances in PA during a Biden midterm.

[UncleSam]

Damn 52 year olds don’t typically have strokes. Hope he’s alright.

[UncleSam]

The white working class voted for Tom wolf not Fetterman who has no general election accomplishment at all.

Cope and seethe

The "Articulate" Left at work here

It's not our fault your candidate is the worst Senate candidate in recent memory.

Ah, yes. That idiot exists - can't believe that was almost 5 years ago.

Considering everything Lamb is probably the worst Democratic Senate candidate in recent memory. I thought he was grossly overrated from the get-go but holy f**k I did not expect him to go that far

Mandela Barnes, Alan Grayson, and Cal Cunningham say hi

Cal Cunningham was perfectly fine, if he hadn't gotten caught until after the election he probably would've outrun the top of the ticket and won. Even after getting caught, he ran essentially even with Biden. Don't see how that is a 'weak' candidate.

I'd also argue that not voting for somebody due to that person having a consensual affair is a really stupid reason to change your vote. But unfortunately that is the society we live in and yes he should've known better (or gotten luckier).

As for Barnes and Grayson - neither has even won a primary yet or been a nominee. Don't see how we can declare them to be terrible candidates just yet.

I'd argue the objective worst D candidate in recent memory is Sara Gideon, who managed to lose by 8 while Biden was winning her state by 9. Even Strickland didn't get outrun by the top of the ticket by 17 points.

[UncleSam]

There’s no way you can look at the primary results and think Dems are favored. Rs got 150k more votes in total and have more outstanding. Mastriano won decisively and has consolidated support.

What does it mean that the rural ‘rejected Oz decisively’? Do you seriously think McCormick voters are going to flip to Fetterman with Biden in office?

I was optimistic for PA Dems until I saw the actual votes come in today. Rs are out-registering Ds every single year in PA and for the first time have overtaken them in primary turnout (by a dominant amount). There’s no way to spin that as positive for Dems. Combine that with Fetterman having a stroke and my confidence in PA going Democrat this year has plummeted. Solid Lean R for both the Gov and Sen races.

For reference, compared to 2014, Ds gained 250k primary voters.

Rs gained a million.

Rs had almost as many primary votes as they earned in the general election for Governor in 2014.

Now all of this should only be seen as a correlate. The race is far from over and Dem enthusiasm is definitely up from where it was. But I’ve seen absolutely nothing in the results to indicate that Dems are going to significantly close the gap.

[UncleSam]

Erm, ok, I know the average American swing voter is an idiot, but I don’t think anyone ever thinks “I was going to vote for Fetterman, but he won’t debate, so I’ll now be voting for Oz.”

Are you sure about that.

There are plenty of 2x Trump voters who say they like Fetterman based on style and populism who won’t like somebody looking like he is running. Remember that Fetterman has been getting a not-insignificant portion or Trump voters in the polls.

I agree with you that Dems won’t care whether Fetterman shows up to any debates at all. But I highly doubt that swing voters and former Trump voters won’t notice.

[UncleSam]

If you're being reduced to calling your competitor "pro murderer" then idk what is really going on with your campaign, and you shouldn't be taken seriously

https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1574392332652351489

I am shocked - SHOCKED, I say - that you think Dr. Oz should not be taken seriously. A searing indictment of his campaign and truly a death knell for Republicans nationwide.

[UncleSam]

If you're being reduced to calling your competitor "pro murderer" then idk what is really going on with your campaign, and you shouldn't be taken seriously

https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1574392332652351489

I am shocked - SHOCKED, I say - that you think Dr. Oz should not be taken seriously. A searing indictment of his campaign and truly a death knell for Republicans nationwide.

....okay? If you think this is a good campaign strategy, feel free to defend it and/or him.

For one, I think that this statement on Fox was just predictable and an average soft on crime line of attack meant to appeal to the Fox News viewer base. It certainly wasn’t a bad strategy lol, though I’d not call it good either, just the epitome of meh.

For two, I can’t take anything you say seriously when every single thing an R says or does elicits some combination of ‘wow that’s desperate’ ‘no clue what this campaign is doing’ ‘total free fall’ ‘this can’t be taken seriously’ ‘if they’re stopping to THIS LEVEL’ etc. takes from you.

To be clear, plenty of strategies or things Rs have said this season are dumb and / or bad political strategy. But you reply to every single news story with the same tired takes, which makes it impossible to take you seriously. Absolutely nothing about what Oz said was weird or out of the ordinary and will not move any votes either way, so I have no clue why you felt the need to post about it as an example of Oz floundering or not being a serious campaign or blah blah blah blah blah.

[UncleSam]

It’s funny that Mastriano will almost certainly be a huge part of the reason Oz loses, assuming he does. For a while it really seemed like the reverse was more likely, but credit to Oz for fighting hard every day and campaigning and getting his face out there while Mastriano has just sat around doing nothing.

[UncleSam]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand why conducting routine scientific trials on animals as a researcher at Columbia is a big deal.

Are people just now realizing that when you test unproven medicines on animals sometimes the animals suffer and die? Obviously they try to make it so that the animals don't suffer much if things do go south but that's literally how we test all potential medications before we move on to human trials.

Maybe people are just daft or don't understand the scientific process. The abortion story in Georgia seems like clearly the bigger deal to me.

[UncleSam]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand why conducting routine scientific trials on animals as a researcher at Columbia is a big deal.

Are people just now realizing that when you test unproven medicines on animals sometimes the animals suffer and die? Obviously they try to make it so that the animals don't suffer much if things do go south but that's literally how we test all potential medications before we move on to human trials.

Maybe people are just daft or don't understand the scientific process. The abortion story in Georgia seems like clearly the bigger deal to me.

Here in Central NJ there's a huge pharmaceutical industry. Animal testing is how the sausage gets made when it comes to researching new medicine. It sucks because the animals suffer, but that doesn't make all of the people I know in the pharmaceutical industry, whose research needs animal subjects, psychopaths.

I don't know whether people calling Oz a murderer are aware that the dogs were going to die even if the research was conducted as ethically as it could've been. It was more that they weren't euthanized quickly enough or that they weren't given adequate painkillers to reduce their pain after they were given the medicine.

It's not like Oz was being dog Mengele. He was conducting legitimate research funded by 75 NIH grants. His lab wasn't just injecting dogs with random drug cocktails just to see what happens, it was still following the scientific method. Any pharmaceutical or medical research is going to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of animals over the course of decade like Oz' lab did. Faulting him for that is more of a criticism of animal testing as a whole, as the NBC article did. 

Of course, this story only further validates Democratic preconceptions of Oz - that he is a shady and cruel man who cannot be trusted with public office, and has no morals or values to speak of. Republicans, on their part, will dismiss this story out of hand and designate it as a unfair hit-job. The responses would be entirely reversed if Oz were a Democrat. That also explains why most Democrats have forgiven Fetterman about the jogging incident and moved ahead, while Republicans are still emphasizing it. Individual morality is very much heavily influenced by partisan identification.

If I'm being honest the absolute worst quality of the American electorate is for elections to often be swung by precisely this kind of thing. There are 5-10% of the voters in the middle who DO care about stuff like this and don't care about policy so the voters who care least about policy in effect end up dictating policy.

[UncleSam]

https://twitter.com/Carrasquillo/status/1577329357386825728

Do we have cross tabs from 2020? These honestly don’t seem like terrible numbers for Oz, though Fetterman is running more of a white working class centric campaign so guess that makes sense.

[UncleSam]

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.

[UncleSam]

The average voter doesn't give a f@ck about 'medical research'. They just care that Dr. Oz killed dogs.

Republican's entire campaign is based on buzzword nonsense and misleading slogans. But then they get mad when Democrats do the same thing (see also Inflation Reduction Act, etc)

Voters are complete idiots, and if you have been on the blog for any substantial amount of time you'd know this.

So I’ll just say this one more time in the vain hope that somebody will understand or not repeat this.

The number of dogs killed by Dr. Oz is 0. As in zero. None. I’m not talking about justifiable killings or euthanasia or medical research whatever, I’m talking period. Dr. Oz has never killed a dog for any reason.

People on his research team did in the course of running clinical trials. I legitimately do think that voters are smarter than that and honestly from what I’ve read there have barely been any major news articles about this at all. There was one Philadelphia Inquirer article which painted a moderately negative picture of Oz, but that is honestly just par for the course. That’s not a scandal, that’s a normal Tuesday.

Again, this is not remotely similar to the abortion scandal in Georgia. That one is damning and is likely to swing a decisive number of voters.

Fetterman may well win, but it won’t be because of this dumb dog story.

[UncleSam]

Based Mastriano?

https://twitter.com/ORMorrison/status/1579486453239009281

awkward.

Did Mastriano just finally have a broken clock moment? I almost appreciate that honesty out of him. What's next? Is he going to declare that Biden and Democrats don't actually control gas prices and inflation rates?

Democrats have a lot of impact on inflation rates. While it is too late to change anything about inflation in the next month, they could have reduced inflation by doing the following things:

• Austerity measures instead of the inflationary American Rescue Plan -- raising taxes or cutting spending instead of increasing spending.
• Not extended the rent moratorium well past its due date
• Not increased unemployment payments
• Not defer student loan payments
• Cut regulations, specifically licensing requirements
• Increase and encourage the usage of fracking
• Encourage the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sooner

The gaslighting and sheer ignorance by the democratic party on the topic of inflation is why I am swapping from a Biden/Ossoff/Warnock vote into a Kemp/Libertarian/Drew Ferguson vote this November. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. Inflation was inevitable from the actions taken in 2020, but it didn't have to be this bad. This inflation is not transitory.




Edit: As far as this race goes, I'm expecting Fetterman to beat Dr. Oz right now, unless it's a big GOP wave year. Oz comes across as awkward and non-authentic. Fetterman is having issues with extremism perception on the topic of crime, but otherwise is relatively charismatic. I think it will have to be a GOP + 4 year or better for Oz to win.

This is pretty much how I feel, though I do think it’s not any particular Dem senators’ fault all that much. It is really mostly Biden’s inept economic policy that has caused this. The self-righteousness and gaslighting that comes from Dems on this is pretty infuriating though. It’s unfortunate that these things often then rebound on Dem senators who had little to do with the bad decisions that led to such an unfavorable environment in the first place.

Though who knows, abortion may yet save the senate for Dems. It does feel oddly like abortion is fading at just the wrong time, though.

[UncleSam]

Didn't watch the debate but based on the takes it seems like Oz predictably came off as smarmy and out-of-touch but it didn't matter because Fetterman is not able to speak like a functional adult as of now (or will be able to in the future?).

I'm kinda surprised that Fettermans' team even opted into this debate tbh, it would've looked awful yes but if this was the alternative I kinda feel like he blew most of his chances tonight with basically no time or options to get the momentum back.

I'd rate this as Lean R at this point, Oz wins by 2-4 imo.

[UncleSam]

To UncleSam:

Mobility is low in the United States. It is better than other countries and some class differences are necessary for a functioning economy. But someone who grew up rich.. and is in a successful career? Is it really that much success?

Agreed, not really sure what that has to do with PA though. If anything Oz is the one who built an empire and was an extremely successful doctor off of nothing but his own hard work and undeniable medical ingenuity.

Fetterman meanwhile lived with his parents well into adulthood, lived off their money while he pursued a political career, and has literally never held a real job.

So tell me which candidate pulled himself up by his bootstraps and which one just spent his life living off of mommy and daddy’s money?

[UncleSam]

To UncleSam:

Mobility is low in the United States. It is better than other countries and some class differences are necessary for a functioning economy. But someone who grew up rich.. and is in a successful career? Is it really that much success?

Agreed, not really sure what that has to do with PA though. If anything Oz is the one who built an empire and was an extremely successful doctor off of nothing but his own hard work and undeniable medical ingenuity.

Fetterman meanwhile lived with his parents well into adulthood, lived off their money while he pursued a political career, and has literally never held a real job.

So tell me which candidate pulled himself up by his bootstraps and which one just spent his life living off of mommy and daddy’s money?

Oz, like Trump, is a con man who sells snake oil. No one is saying con men can’t be successful, but I would dispute the skills involved with being a con man (which mostly involve being willing to throw all ethics out the window while shamelessly lying to and manipulating people) somehow translate into being an effective leader. Oh they might make you great at the worst, sleaziest parts of politics — corrupt deals, lying to voters, etc. But is that really what we want MORE of in our politicians?

I’ll grant that Oz, unlike Trump (who was as silver spoon-fed and “never held a real job” as it gets), did show he had some work ethic and actual skills in his medical career. But he sold out to be a TV snake oil salesman. And in any case, just because you are smart and good in one field does not mean that translates to all other fields. This bizarre notion among Republicans that the richer someone is, the better they are in general reeks of prosperity gospel.

I do respect his medical career a million times more than being a TV personality. Going from being the son of turkish immigrants to a renowned medical researcher at one of the premier research institutions in the country (Columbia) is among the most impressive career trajectories I have of anybody having in any field, regardless of being politically inclined or not. I can't think of a single sitting senator with a more impressive resume in that respect.

In terms of him selling out for the TV money, I don't care much either way. He bandied being photogenic into a massive fortune and I neither view him negatively nor positively for it. I do think that the world would have been better off if he had stayed in his medical researcher role, though. Regardless, he is clearly the better choice for U.S. senate when compared to Fetterman, whose problems go well beyond his stroke and who is simultaneously unfit and unqualified to serve in the senate. The country would be better off with Oz in that seat.

And yes, I support Warnock in GA for the same reason. The country will be better off with someone who has not suffered cognitive impairment in the senate. Anybody supporting both Warnock and Fetterman (or Oz and Walker) is imo nothing more than a partisan hack who cares only for political power.

[UncleSam]

Federalist just came out with a painfully silly attack on Fetterman.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/28/john-fettermans-trump-voting-republican-parents-are-card-carrying-democrats/

“We want to tell you something about John Fetterman. He was raised by two Trump-voting Republicans right here in this house in York,” Karl and Susan Fetterman claim in the 30-second video. “Us!”

The problem is that Fetterman’s parents are not Trump supporters or Republicans. According to voting records obtained by The Federalist, Susan and Karl Fetterman have been voting Democrat for at least six years—beginning when the couple registered as Democrats to vote in the 2016 primaries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania#Democratic_primary

Not sure why this is silly. He had his parents feature in an ad explicitly for his campaign and in that ad they blatantly lied expecting not to get called out on it.

[UncleSam]

A week out, and Oz has still been silent publicly. No public concession message, no post to social, no nothing. He's just as terrible as expected.

He called Fetterman to concede? Not really sure why posting to social media is now a requirement. Maybe he is out hiking in the woods like Hillary.