Is Oz Trying To Lose?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

I mean at this point he seems to be the worst possible candidate. Yesterday he advocated for privatizing Medicare. WTF.

[Spectator]

I think he’d rather win, but I don’t think his heart is in it.

[SnowLabrador]

I think he’d rather win, but I don’t think his heart is in it.

[Inmate Trump]

Maybe we should stop trying to push celebrity candidates......

[Ferguson97]

No, but I think the people working for him are.

[Vosem]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

[here2view]

No he's just an idiot.

[Xing]

Never underestimate how bad someone can be at campaigning, or anything for that matter.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

Not in any serious sense.

[Skunk]

A Republican being out of touch and saying stupid things isn't proof of him trying to lose, it's the party's platform.

[Lief 🗽]

Honestly it never really made sense to me why he wanted to be a senator? Why doesn’t he just enjoy being a super rich famous guy? He’s really rather spend half his life in DC taking orders from Mitch McConnell?

[Alcibiades]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

Yeah, exactly. That’s why voters gave the Republican Party a huge mandate in 2018 to successfully complete their attempted repeal of Obamacare.

[If my soul was made of stone]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

Yeah, exactly. That’s why voters gave the Republican Party a huge mandate in 2018 to successfully complete their attempted repeal of Obamacare.

Crudités for some, Martin Shkreli NFTs for others!

[Yoda]

No. He is who he is. Who he is is a comically out-of-touch, wealthy, daytime TV charlatan who lives in NJ.

[brucejoel99]

he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

This is one of the most deluded electoral takes that I've read on the forum in months. Like, do you genuinely live in an alternate reality? Just.. wow 😵‍💫😵‍💫

[President Johnson]

No, he and his advisers just seem inept and as already stated it seems like his heart isn't really in it. Maybe he just wanted to try something new and thought it was easier. Maybe he expected Trump's endorsement for the primary and a presumed red wave for the general would get him the seat without much effort.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

I almost spit out my coffee. This is the dumbest thing I've read all week. Do you have any polls?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's a 303 map anyways it won't matter who. The R Nominee is in 24 because Shapiro, Evers and Whitmer are gonna get reelected nothing has changed, Trump can declare running for Prez all he  wants and he won't win.

That's why Oz and Johnson are losing the Rs want a giant tax cut for the richest American, the only R that cracked the blue wall was Schwarzenegger and he was a Kennedy

UWS talks about all the programs Ryan votes for and rich people donate to charity and that's entitlement

[ProgressiveModerate]

He comes across as a kid doing the bare minimum to get through a class they don't like. He wants the seat but doesn't like campaigning.

[Хahar 🤔]

Honestly it never really made sense to me why he wanted to be a senator? Why doesn’t he just enjoy being a super rich famous guy? He’s really rather spend half his life in DC taking orders from Mitch McConnell?

Heat made the point recently (which I think is accurate) that he may be rich and famous, but everyone whose opinion he's interested in thinks of him as a quack. If he were a United States Senator those people would have to respect him, or so the thinking would go.

[Progressive Pessimist]

No. He wouldn't have abandoned his cushy job as a snake oil TV salesman if that as the case. He is just that deluded and incompetent.

[Vosem]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

Yeah, exactly. That’s why voters gave the Republican Party a huge mandate in 2018 to successfully complete their attempted repeal of Obamacare.

Yes, voters gave the GOP huge mandates when they ran on Obamacare repeal (2010/2014/2016), and when they failed to deliver there was of course an enormous backlash.

Given how much all other aspects of the GOP agenda are poisonously unpopular (consider how large the fraction of society is that wants abortion/gay marriage/weed to be legal) and how large the swings towards the GOP have been in elections where they've kept their message strictly focused on healthcare (MA-Sen-2010, VT-Gov-2014 stand out here), this pretty much has to be true. It just goes against the common wisdom that the public is very "populist", when the electorate that turns out is basically the opposite.

[Alcibiades]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

Yeah, exactly. That’s why voters gave the Republican Party a huge mandate in 2018 to successfully complete their attempted repeal of Obamacare.

Yes, voters gave the GOP huge mandates when they ran on Obamacare repeal (2010/2014/2016), and when they failed to deliver there was of course an enormous backlash.

Given how much all other aspects of the GOP agenda are poisonously unpopular (consider how large the fraction of society is that wants abortion/gay marriage/weed to be legal) and how large the swings towards the GOP have been in elections where they've kept their message strictly focused on healthcare (MA-Sen-2010, VT-Gov-2014 stand out here), this pretty much has to be true. It just goes against the common wisdom that the public is very "populist", when the electorate that turns out is basically the opposite.

To spin it this way is just … deluded beyond words. Obviously Obamacare increased massively in popularity over time, as people saw its actual effects (unlike the scaremongering campaign in 2010 before it had kicked in), and became acutely aware of the effects of its repeal after the GOP attempted to do so. Exit polling in 2018 showed, and has continued to show since, that healthcare was overwhelmingly the issue on which voters trusted Democrats the most.

If you want an even stronger example of the pure electoral toxicity of “general privatization of the US healthcare system”, how about the fact that every single Medicaid expansion referendum — most of which have been in deeply Republican states such as Oklahoma, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska and Missouri — has passed? A little more convincing than whatever bizarre extrapolation you’re trying to derive from the 2014 Vermont gubernatorial race, I reckon.

[WD]

No, he's self-funded eight figures and he's pivoting towards better issues for his campaign, like general privatization of the US health-care system, which recent electoral history suggests is a position held by a clear majority of the US electorate.

Yeah, exactly. That’s why voters gave the Republican Party a huge mandate in 2018 to successfully complete their attempted repeal of Obamacare.

Yes, voters gave the GOP huge mandates when they ran on Obamacare repeal (2010/2014/2016), and when they failed to deliver there was of course an enormous backlash.

Given how much all other aspects of the GOP agenda are poisonously unpopular (consider how large the fraction of society is that wants abortion/gay marriage/weed to be legal) and how large the swings towards the GOP have been in elections where they've kept their message strictly focused on healthcare (MA-Sen-2010, VT-Gov-2014 stand out here), this pretty much has to be true. It just goes against the common wisdom that the public is very "populist", when the electorate that turns out is basically the opposite.

Not sure what planet you’re living on, but in the real world, the attempted Obamacare repeal bill had approvals in the 20s (Some polls showed it as low as 12%!); the least popular major legislative proposal in decades. If you think getting that Randian monstrosity signed into law is what would have brought voters running back to the GOP, well maybe you aren’t as in touch with the electorate and the public as you may think.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ever notice how none of these "Trumpist" or "Trump endorsed candidates" ever actually run the same way that Trump himself did, at least in 2016 when he "actually won".

Trump ran on a massive infrastructure program, openly condemned the devastating impacts of free trade, multiple times openly pined for a European style healthcare system and vowed to "totally protect social security and Medicare".

Contrast this with in 2011 when Republicans manage to piss away the then NY-26 thanks to Paul Ryan's genius ideas on entitlements.

Or how Mitt Romney thought it would be a great idea when already facing accusations of being out of touch with working class people, embraced Paul Ryan and thus had to deal with accusations of wanting to take away people's Medicare alongside of:
1. killing a guy's wife by outsourcing her husbands plant
2. allowing an article with the title "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" be attached to his name.
3. Looking like the guy who lays you off.

2010 was about the economy and health care being seen as a distraction from the economy
2014 was about ISIS, Ebola and the border crisis, with the failure of the Obamacare website being in the mix
2016 was about Trump running a working class populist campaign against possibly the worst possible candidate that Democrats could have nominated for said voters.

In no election have Republicans "focused on the privatization of entitlements" and actually won the election and every time they bring it up to the primary focus, they get murdered for it. Even in 2004, Bush had created Medicare Part D, NCLB and the primary issue was the War, not his Social Security plans.

Just ask fifth term Senator Rick Santorum about the wisdom of running on entitlement privatization in PA.