Pennsylvania Senate candidate, John Fetterman, was backed into a corner regarding having a debate with his Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz. It is finally going to take place on October 25, but a whole lot of people will have already voted by then through early voting.
The state Democratic Party probably did not want to put him under that kind of spotlight because of the gaffes he has already made that have caused this race to be tight as we approach the finish line. Oz had been losing by double digits, but now the race is neck and neck.
It seemed like the strategy for Fetterman’s team was to keep him hidden, but it proved not to work.
The latest poll is revealing that Oz might be ahead by 4.5 points. That poll was from Wick and it has Oz ahead with 49.1 percent to Fetterman’s 44.6 percent. And among those who still say that they are undecided, Oz is leading by a total of 59 percent to 41 percent.
In the RealClearPolitics average, Fetterman is still ahead by 2.2 percent. But no one is doubting whether Oz can win this race.
So the Democrats are forced to just play down any expectations for Fetterman in the upcoming debate. This became clear through a memo that was just released to the media.
The memo makes it clear that the media should be told that Dr. Oz has been “a professional TV personality for the last two decades” and “this isn’t John’s format.”
But the truth is that no one has seemed to find exactly what Fetterman’s “format” really is. He has messed up in so many different “formats.”
So all they can do is talk about how Fetterman is coming into the debate with a “huge built-in advantage.”
Ok, it’s true that Dr. Oz became a successful television personality, but he was also a successful cardio-thoracic surgeon. And he was a professor emeritus and taught at Columbia University Medical Center.
And there’s more, he was involved in inventing cardiac surgical devices like the transformative Mitraclip to deal with mitral valve regurgitation.
The problem for Fetterman is not that Dr. Oz has more television experience, it’s that he’s smarter and accomplished so much more.
It’s crazy how now that there is finally going to be a debate, the Fetterman team seems to be praising his opponent to somewhat diminish expectations of Fetterman. They are also already going after those who will write about the debate before the debate. They actually wrote that they know there will be viral videos posted on social media because of Fetterman’s “awkward pauses, missing some words, and mushing some words together.”
They try to maintain that things like that are not important for the person who is running to be your state’s senator.
Fetterman’s team is also making a case that Dr. Oz has been a lot of things, but he has never been a politician like their candidate.
What?
Fetterman has only been a politician. He lived off of his parents most of his life. And when he was in office in Braddock, he left it worse than it was when he got there. He was awol for most of his term as Lt. Gov. Of Pennsylvania.
The released memo ends by promising that Fetterman will win the race even if he does not win the debate. Their hopes are so low, they are conceding in advance.
This is not where you want to be when the projection is a tight race that is now neck and neck.
For Oz, this is just what the doctor ordered.
