By electing @JohnFetterman and a few other bold Democrats across the country we can make Joe Manchin irrelevant.
— Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (@malcolmkenyatta) July 15, 2022
‘He’s in Pennsylvania’ was trending on twitter Saturday night. Does Oz’s campaign team have something against their boss, or are they just really bad at their jobs?…
working on a new theory that proximity to john fetterman causes republican media consultants to start shooting out sparks and smoke and start running into walls https://t.co/DceeEPapJP
— GONELIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) July 14, 2022
I do not know anything about politics and imagine it's a lost cause electorally but I think Tim Ryan should be as rude to JD Vance as John Fetterman is being to Dr. Oz. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but either way at least you'll be able to say that you were rude to a creep.
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) July 15, 2022
War For Ukraine Day 144: President Zelenskyy Cleans House; Liza Dmytrieva Has Been Laid To Rest
Mai Naem mobile
I don’t mean to ask a stupid question but why doesn’t Oz just run in NJ in ’24? Why didn’t he run in ’20?
Ian R
@Mai Naem mobile: NJ is quite solidly Democratic. He’s running in PA because he thinks he can win there; he knows he can’t in Jersey.
SiubhanDuinne
Jesus Murphy, but Oz is really really really bad at this.
Alison Rose
Didn’t Fetterman just recover (or in the process of) from a stroke? The fuck is wrong with these people. (Don’t answer that.)
Also one more thing conservatives really don’t understand is attractiveness. Now I’m the first to push back on bullshit standards and all that, but I saw a couple women in comments on some random FB post talking about how handsome Oz is. The same party where women were googoo eyed over Trump, for the love of God. Like, if I weren’t already an asexual lesbian, the mere idea of having sex with either of those men would’ve sent me there, posthaste.
Urban Suburbanite
@Alison Rose : He did, and I think he had a pacemaker put in. That’s why so much of his campaigning has been online.
frosty
I’ll be working for him this Fall. I still maintain he could have beaten Toomey in 2016. That was definitely an election where a non-traditional candidate could have swiped the Senate from Trump’s coattails.
Anyway, my favorite bit is how Giselle calls herself the SLOP: Second Lady of Pennsylvania. She’s as good at trolling Oz as John.
Urban Suburbanite
The one thing I loved about the TV doctor was that campaign ad he had with the guns. It was almost beat for beat the ad Jonah Ryan had in Veep (one of my favorite shows of all time).
HumboldtBlue
I remember summer fun.
opiejeanne
Is Tim Ryan a lost cause? For some reason I thought he was doing pretty well recently.
eclare
@opiejeanne: I hope not! I thought he was doing OK too.
mrmoshpotato
Reposting
Steve Hofstetter – Proof That Dr. Oz Is A Fraud
Jeffery
Fetterman could die and I think he would still win the election.
Ten Bears
I’d pay good money to see Fetterman lay one upside Oz’s head.
I didn’t know a furriner could run for the senate …
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
How is Fetterman being rude to Oz?
Lampooning an opponent isnt rudeness. The media has a weird standard for Democrats. This Roth guy would be fainting if he heard what LBJ did to Goldwater.
Baud
Good on Kenyatta. I like the idea of campaigning against Joe Manchin. For whatever reason, Dems are more motivated to fight other Dems than they are to fight Republicans.
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch:
Is Roth the media? You’re not wrong though.
JWR
@mrmoshpotato: Thanks! That was good.
sab
Tim Ryan has been pointing out that JD Vance got the hell out of Ohio when he went off to college and hasn’t really been back since until this Senate run.
NotMax
Oprah’s got some ‘splaining to do.
//
Baud
@sab:
People on Twitter care about the entertainment value of the message more that the substance of the message itself.
Ryan should focus on being Ryan and not try to be Fetterman.
Geminid
J6 Commitee member Elaine Luria (VA-2nd) appeared on CNN’s Sunday show yesterday and previewed Thursday evening’s Commitee hearing. Politico reported on her remarks. Luria said the hearing would focus on trump’s activities when he returned to the White House that afternoon. Witnesses will include Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, Pat Cippolone (from his recorded interview) and unnamed others.
Along with Adam Kinzinger, Luria will take a leading role at the hearing, the last scheduled Commitee hearing (there could be more).
Cameron
In my fantasy politics, John Fetterman has a twin who moves to Florida and takes down Nosferatu…..
Geminid
@sab: J.D. Vance’s 2nd quarter FEC report was pathetic. $1 million raised, $600,000 on hand, $800,000 in debts. He has PACs supporting him, and there is speculation that Peter Thiel will cut a big check after the Arizona primary (Thiel has a horse in that race). Still, Vance’s filing showed an absence of rank and file support. And apparently he has campaigned very little since the contentious and expensive primary.
That should be a safe seat for Republicans, but Democrats have a strong candidate, and thanks to a certain “stable genius” Republicans have a weak one.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: Here’s a July 7 article on a poll conducted the week before. Results showed Ryan leading Vance 43% to 34%. The PAC conducting the poll was anti-Vance, according to what I read.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think it’s helpful for Dems who are campaigning for the Senate to explicitly explain the need for two more votes to make Manchin (and Sinema) irrelevant, but it seems to be a controversial view.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Who’s on the other side of that?
To be clear, I’m not saying ignore the GOP completely. But Manchin has at least given us a visible target to blame for our problems. We don’t have to blame some abstract idea like “Washington” or “the system.”
(And Sinema too, for those who prefer to blame women).
JWR
I’ll admit to never having payed much attention to Ruy Teixeira, but I still found this move a bit weird. But then, the article mentions his 2002 book, co-authored by John Judis, and that they’re currently working on another, and it all starts to make at least a bit more sense. From Politico:
ETA Hmm.
Baud
@JWR:
AEI has a few token libs like Norm Ornstein. Looking up their “scholars,” though, they are a white as snow organization.
O. Felix Culpa
@JWR:
Knowing nothing about Teixeira, but something about AEI, I’d suggest following the money.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure that’s a bad thing to do. I’m just not sure it helps a candidate like, say Tim Ryan, to reference Manchin and Sinema in order to make his case to Ohio voters. He can do well talking about how bad it would be to send the huckster Vance to the Senate, and how Ryan will be a loyal supporter of President Biden’s agenda insofar as it serves Ohioan’s interests. Some of the voters Ryan needs to win in a state Trump carried by 8 points might actually like Manchin and Sinema, as despised as they are by Democrats like those on this forum, and Ryan’s job is to attract Ohio voters, not us.
Baud
@Geminid:
That makes sense. I think it helps in places where we need discouraged liberal voters to turn out (because apparently there are liberal voters who need help with that).
Baud
@JWR:
Former Senator Phil Gramm is at AEI. A good reminder that the GOP had always been horrible.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: There was a post here recently featuring a tweet from gun safety advocate / Parkland dad Fred Guttenberg saying Dems should stop complaining about Manchin and focus 100% on Republicans, and some folks here agreed with the sentiment. It’s a fairly common view on Twitter too, at least in my timeline. I understand the sentiment behind it; obviously any Republican senator is worse than Manchin or Sinema, and Geminid makes a good point at #29 that it’ll be situational.
But it does seem like one problem the party has across the board is that many voters don’t understand why popular items in Biden’s agenda are stalled when Dems nominally control the House, Senate and White House. Being explicit about the need to have at least two more Senate votes addresses that. Every Republican and two Democrats* are the roadblock. So, we need at least two more Democrats.
*Assuming there aren’t other filibusterphiles hiding behind Manchin and Sinema.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I will never warm to Bernie Sanders, but he apparently squarely put the blame on Manchin on the Sunday talk shows. I hope his supporters get that message.
JWR
@Baud:
Is Ornstein really a lib, or just a never-Trumper? I’ve always thought of him as the latter.
satby
@Baud: Ornstein (at least) used to consider himself an old school conservative, but facts have such a pesky liberal bias!
@O. Felix Culpa: Ruy’s book mentioned above was titled “The Emerging Democratic Majority”, written in 2004 and based heavily on how demographics would change the American electorate. But yeah, I’m thinking CREAM
Betty Cracker
@Baud: You’re right — Sanders was all over the media with that message after Manchin blew up the latest “negotiation.” I’ll never warm to the old coot either, but maybe in this one instance, he’s pissing on the right person inside the tent.
satby
@Betty Cracker: stopped clock. And professional jealousy; Manchin is intruding on his turf as the Senator who matters.
Yeah, not forgiving or forgetting = me.
Baud
@JWR:
I don’t know what all his policy positions are, but the recent stuff I’ve seen indicates he knows the GOP is an existential threat to democracy.
I think on policy, he’s probably a moderate. But I don’t follow him closely.
Scout211
Governor Newsom is urging the Democratic Party to get more aggressive right now.
Link to Twitter
@RonFilpkowski:
Baud
@Scout211:
Agreed. We put too much on the president to do everything. It was the same problem with Obama.
JWR
@Baud: Back in 2012-13, when I read his book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” (co-authored with Thomas Mann), I thought of him as a conservative, albeit an unhappy one. But that was a whole decade(!) ago, so who knows? I just wish the Right would split up with itself and get it over with.
Baud
@JWR:
This is his most recent tweet.
JAFD
@O. Felix Culpa:
Possibilities: One; Looking to buy house
Two; Kids approaching college age
(I know nothing about him, other than his written works.)
SFAW
I’m not sure I understand Oz’s back-of-the-milk-carton tweet. Is he saying that Fetterman is not out on the road, campaigning? [ETA: Is it a back-handed attempt to bring up the stroke?]
And the idea of that asshole thinking he’s super-duper cool (“wya **”) is either hilarious, or disgusting, or I-don’t-know-what.
But Katsky’s idiotic “he’s been owning your ass on twitter” is, well, idiotic. Pwning on twitter only means something to the kewl kids, numbskull.
SFAW
@Baud:
I see Ornstein’s comments from time to time. I think your assessment is probably correct.
ian
@Baud:
Snark aside, each one of our two precious senators has a different problem. We can’t do anything about climate change (which Sinema is on board with) because Manchin. We can’t do anything about upping rich people’s taxes (which Manchin is on board with) because Sinema. As soon as some sort of deal gets made, the goalposts get moved.
gvg
@ian: Manchin is against raising taxes. he’s rich with rich friends and he always votes against tax increases. Don’t even know about Sinema, but he is not very coy on his position.
VOR
Back in 1998 former pro wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura won the race for Governor of Minnesota. His opponents were standard politicians, the Dem the son of Minnesota legend Hubert Humphrey and the Republican the incumbent mayor of the 2nd largest city in the state (and later a US Senator). Minnesota allows candidates to run under the name they are “known by in the community” and Ventura’s stage name was more well known than his birth name. He was allowed to be in the debates because a candidate from his 3rd party had received 5% of the vote in the prior cycle’s Senate election, meeting the threshold to be considered a “major party”. The debates allowed Ventura to shine. Questions would be asked and the traditional politicians would give well-rehearsed responses which rarely answered the question. Ventura responded with “Yes”. “No”. and “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out”. It was a startling breath of fresh air. Social media didn’t exist yet so Ventura ran unorthodox campaign commercials. One had kids playing with a Jesse Ventura action figure fighting special interests and corruption. Another had him posed as Rodin’s Thinker. A tagline: “Don’t vote for politics as usual”. Ventura won with almost 37% of the vote.
S Cerevisiae
@VOR: and Ventura was better than Pawlenty who followed, thankfully MN came to it’s senses in 2010.
schrodingers_cat
Twitter fame does not necessarily translate to electoral success as the Vt. senator’s campaigns for President demonstrate.
He has been unable to campaign in person because of his stroke and this a seat we can’t afford to lose. So I wish him the best.
artem1s
@sab:
Ryan needs to focus on getting out the vote in the AA community. He could win in OH but not without AA women. Playing ‘I know I am but what are you’ on Twitter with someone who isn’t even in the state will get him nowhere. We should be rooting for injuries due to TFG’s endorsement and Vance’s out of state $$$. That will keep regular GOPers away from the polls anyway. And the fundies pick, Mandel, is gone too. Ryan’s best hope to NOT poke the disinterested GOP voter. He should be focusing on turning out the Democratic Vote in NEOH. Pro-union, pro-choice, pro-BLM, etc will engage the base. Ignoring the latest LEO shooting in Akron, not so much. He should be spending all his time campaigning with Shontel Brown. Not pissing about taunting Vance.