Pay No Attention To The Quack Behind The Curtain

Is there a doctor in the house?

A real doctor?  

Okay, Mehmet Oz is a real doctor, but, given his embrace of pseudoscience and alternative medicines, it's a wonder he hasn't lost his license.  He also proved in his U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania that he's as good a politician as he is a doctor, claiming that carbon isn't so bad when it's only four-one hundredths of a percent of the partleices in the air and finding no fault in extending the Second Amendment to not-so-well-regulated militias. His incompetence as a doctor and his incompetence as a public servant coincided when he suggested that hydroxychloroquine could cure COVID.

And, just to show how extreme he isn't ("I'm a moderate!"), he attended a rally just before the election with Donald Trump and failed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Douglas Mastriano, two guys not known for moderation.

CNN's Jake Tapper, who grew up in Philadelphia, said that knowing a thing or two about Pennsylvania politics, he could not imagine Democratic senatorial candidate John Fetterman being a viable contender.  He obviously knew absolutely nothing about Mehmet Oz. 

Fetterman Does The Oz

John Fetterman bombed completely in his one and only debate with Dr. Mehmet Oz in the U.S. Senate election campaign in Pennsylvania.  Or so you might think after reading headlines like this one from the Associated Press:

Fetterman struggles in Senate debate against Oz after stroke

Or how about this one from the New York Times?

Fetterman’s Debate Showing Raises Democratic Anxieties in Senate Battle 

Here's one from Politico! 

Fetterman’s debate performance prompts Democratic handwringing 

And from NBC News . . .

Fetterman's debate performance has Democrats on edge in crucial Pennsylvania Senate race 

Really!

Listen, people . . . Democrats are worry-warts by nature.  You'd be, too, if your party kept losing one or both houses of Congress two years into the administration of a President of your party.  You'd certainly be nervous if the opposition party nominated a telegenic celebrity to run against your guy.  And you'd certainly wring your hands knowing your best issues are the issues voters care about the least.   

To play up Fetterman's struggles in Tuesday night is to suggest that no one knew that Fetterman was recovering from a stroke.  He made it clear that no one should expect him to do as well as Dr. Oz because of what he called "the elephant in the room" - not Oz's wife but the issue of his health, which Fetterman's doctor - unlike Oz, a practicing doctor - says is good and improving every day.   So they poor guy flubbed a bit on the fracking issues.  Big deal.

As for Oz, who owns nearly a dozen homes and none of them in Pennsylvania (a few of them are in Turkey), he showed about as much intelligence about abortion as he does toward diet supplements. He proposed that abortion rights should not be decided on by the federal government by "women, their doctors, and local political leaders" . . . as if local political leaders had anything resembling the medical expertise Oz allegedly has.

Oh yeah, if Fetterman is finished, why did he rake in half a million bucks after the debate?

Chill out, Dems, you should do just fine in Pennsylvania.

It's states like Nevada and Georgia, where Democrats actually hold those seats up for election as opposed to the open GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania, that you should worry about!

(P.S. I was only kidding about Oz's wife Lisa, I'm sure she's a lovely person.)

Keystone Kops

Crazy things are going on in today's Pennsylvania primary elections.  On the Republican side, a racist black female conservative - she sounds like a Jerry Springer guest - has thrown a monkey wrench into things in the Senate nomination contest, while on the Democratic side, a tough guy with bad fashion sense and a heart of gold could beat a mainstream Democrat for their party's U.S. Senate nomination.

Kathy Barnette has surged in the polls for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania for the state's open seat, mainly for being farther to the right than even Donald Trump, bashing Muslims and gays while using her own circumstance - she's the result of her mother's rape - as an argument against all abortions.  Trump likes her and thinks she has a future but doesn't think she's ready for prime time now.  His choice is New Jersey resident (shh! - don't tell anyone! 😀) Mehmet Oz, a daytime TV show who says he's a doctor, though hedge-fund manager David McCormick is running a close race with him and could easily win the nomination by being more like Trump than Oz.  Now Barnette has made it a three-way tie in the polls, which means the election results could be unavailable for days.

On the Democratic side, Conor Lamb, a moderate congressman from the Pittsburgh area who looks so much like a senator that he could get away with wearing a toga, is well behind in the polls, with Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Bernie Sanders-style progressive so causal he campaigns in sweatshirts and gym shorts, in the lead.  Lamb, a former Marine and a former assistant U.S. attorney,  has a dream candidate's resume in his favor . . . and that's all.  Pennsylvania Democrats have decided that a safe choice is no longer desirable, simply because they believe that a Senator Lamb could go to Washington and fail to get anything done because of the way the Senate "operates" these days.  Fetterman is seen as a fighter who will fight for core Democratic values.  Lamb is seen as someone who lives up to his surname.  

Independent commentator and Pennsylvania resident Michael Smerconish worries that Pennsylvania voters will be turned off in the fall by the possibility of extreme Senate candidates in a state where only registered party members can vote in primaries and independents have to stay home, and some Republicans are looking forward to a potential Oz-Fetterman race, thinking Oz can win such a match because of middle-class familiarity with the not-so-good doctor.  I'm not sure about that. Fetterman is a working-class hero who always talks about how blue-collar voters and the middle class constantly get screwed by the system, making him a populist at a time when populism is, well, popular.  He can sell progressive populism because he's a regular guy, not some coastal intellectual or some social-media-happy showhorse.       

Fetterman has one thing against him.  He suffered a stroke a few days ago.  How that plays into today's voting remains to be seen.  One thing I'd like to note; former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley has supported both Fetterman and Lamb in earlier elections, Fetterman for his previous U.S. Senate run and Lamb for his first U.S. House run.  O'Malley is neutral this time, mainly because he can't be bothered with any political campaigns other than his wife's bid for Maryland Attorney General.  

The gubernatorial primary is more straightforward.  Far rightist state senator and 2020 election result denier Doug Mastriano is a shoo-in for the Republican nomination while Pennsylvania Attorney Josh Shapiro is running for the Democratic nomination unopposed.  Both sides agree that Shapiro will likely win the governorship in a landslide in November if Mastriano is his opponent.