It just keeps getting worse with this fucking guy:
In what continues to be an incredibly puzzling campaign, Dr. Mehmet Oz attended a $5,000-a-plate fundraiser hosted by sex pest Matt Gaetz’s in-laws on Thursday night at the Lyon Air Museum and stood in front of one of Adolf Hitler’s cars, which made it into the background of attendees’ photos.
The museum is full of WWII memorabilia, and yes, it is just a museum. But a campaign allowing their candidate to be photographed at a fundraiser with a car that literally has a swastika on it is quite a choice.
Photos from the event, of course, surfaced on social media, and Twitter user Larry Tenney shared a screenshot from Instagram stories showing Oz standing on a small podium next to a TV monitor showing the logo for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a hashtag #TheOzShow. Jezebel confirmed the image as coming from the account of Shane Mitchell, who attended the event. Behind Oz is a dark colored wagon that matches photos on the museum’s website of a 1939 Mercedes-Benz Model G4 Offener Touring Wagon. The museum’s own website says:
“This particular G4, 440875, was originally delivered to Adolph Hitler in late 1939 and was used by the Fuhrer in Ober Salzberg, Berlin and Poland until seized by the French Army at Berchtesgaden.”
The red plaque with a swastika is not visible in the photo of Oz.
NRSC Chairman Rick Scott (R. FL) was also there with a U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt (R. NV) in attendance and he had Jordan Peters call in so a pretty shitty band of folks.
Twitter is going ape shit about this:
Meanwhile, as Doc Hollywood is campaigning in California, Fetterman has his eye on the prize: Philadelphia.
Fetterman's campaign schedule was thrown off track this spring when he had a serious stroke just days before the May primary. His recovery took him off the trail for much of the summer. When he returned, the lingering effects were evident. He spoke haltingly, in brief, often clipped or uneven sentences. His campaign attributed it to ongoing "auditory processing" issues, a symptom that would resolve itself with time and rest -- two things that, in the home stretch of high-stakes campaign, he doesn't have much of to spare.
Still, at recent events, his progress was evident. Fetterman was cautious at times, sticking to familiar anecdotes and lines of attack, but the bullish confidence and humor that helped burnish his unique political brand were clear enough to see and hear. And a friendly audience -- Fetterman is the rare politician who attracts fans as much as supporters -- was eager to urge him on at any hint of a rough patch.
Fetterman's campaign viewed the event as less of a "last stop" than the culmination of its long, often subterranean efforts to win over a city, block by block, that is so crucial to his chances in November.
His campaign manager, Brendan McPhillips, lives in the city and worked as Biden's state director two years ago. And his hiring of Joe Pierce, a Black operative with deep ties across the city, was often the first name mentioned as proof, in the minds of local officials, that Fetterman was pressing all the right buttons.
These local officials and leaders who spoke to CNN about Fetterman's outreach, all of whom have now endorsed and support him after either backing one of his primary opponents or sitting out the nominating contest, were all guardedly optimistic that Fetterman was well-positioned to hit the needed margins and, in tandem with state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for governor with whom Fetterman shares a coordinated campaign committee, inspire necessarily high levels of turnout.
Before the Philadelphia rally, as supporters queued up around the block waiting for doors to open, Desiree L.A. Whitfield, 56, a local business owner and traveling civil and voting rights activist, walked the line with a loud message.
"Last (primary) election day, 30% of voters voted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That's unacceptable. They're waiting for us to not vote," she yelled. "We can rally all day long -- Fetterman! Fetterman! Fetterman! -- but if you don't do your part, we don't get this."
Speaking afterward with what remained of her voice, Whitfield, who lives a few blocks from the venue, praised Fetterman's and Shapiro's community outreach, but put the onus on her neighbors.
"They can campaign," she said of the candidates, "but we have the power because we're the ones that go to the voting place and cast your vote."
During the primary, the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, a labor coalition that encompasses unions in the city and surrounding suburbs and has nearly 50,000 members, endorsed US Rep. Conor Lamb. But it switched to Fetterman after he won the nomination and its members are now knocking on doors and leadership is committed to a robust internal communication effort.
"What we're trying to do is really galvanize, first of all, our membership to make sure that we have at least 90% voter participation within our ranks," said Ryan Boyer, the first Black council leader.
The 2016 presidential election, Boyer added, had been a wakeup call for labor and his own group, which saw "some of our members go outside of our endorsement and vote for former President Trump," a development that caused the union's political leadership to refocus on "zealously, hyper-targeting our membership base and the families of our membership."
The Biden administration's infrastructure legislation, Boyer told CNN, had provided a concrete argument, on behalf of Fetterman, for labor leaders to make to the rank-and-file.
"We talk about (how) if Democrats weren't in charge of the Senate and the House, we wouldn't have an infrastructure bill that a lot of our members are going to get some great work in," he said.
And the swing areas:
Election season is a busy time in Bucks County.
The perennial purple collar county is always a favorite destination for candidates running for office — for good political reason. It’s become a critical county for Republicans running statewide. And Democrats this year hope to reverse big losses.
“We’re kind of like a microcosm of the rest of the state,” said GOP chair Pat Poprik. “We have really conservative, really liberal, and moderates, so the way we go is kinda the way the rest of the state goes.”
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is holding his first rally there Sunday. He’ll stump at an outdoor baseball field in Bristol after a rally in York County Saturday. His stop follows repeat visits from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro and both Republicans running statewide, state Sen. Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz.
Bucks will be a test of Fetterman’s working-class appeal in a region known as pro-union, with a mix of midsize townships, smaller boroughs, and large swaths of farmland.
It’s also a county that has shifted more Democratic at the top of the ballot while continuing to elect Republicans farther down, as nearby suburban counties have gotten bluer from top to bottom. In 2021, Republicans swept the county row office elections, reverting from Democratic gains there in 2017. While turnout was high for both parties, it was supercharged for the GOP, which won most countywide races by about five points.
And his fellow Democrats are out on the campaign trail for him:
Also:
A new push about to be launched by the Fetterman campaign embraces support by current and former Republicans, and features their voices backing the Democrat as he aims to flip Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, NBC10 has learned.
“I’ve been a Republican my entire life,” a Montgomery County man says in one video as he looks at the camera. “I’ll be voting for John Fetterman.”
In another, a woman from Scranton says she “used to be a Republican” and “what made me switch was what happened at the Capitol on January 6.” She also says she’ll support Fetterman, saying “he stands for the working class” and for “choice.”
The campaign is launching “Republicans for Fetterman,” which will include both digital and television ads, with five weeks to go before Election Day and as polls have tightened in the race that could determine who controls the U.S. Senate.
“Fetterman’s populist brand and commitment to hold Washington accountable has earned him not only support for voters across the political spectrum, but unprecedented levels of enthusiasm that stand in particularly stark contrast with Dr. Oz,” the Fetterman campaign said in a release to NBC10 ahead of the launch.
And:
Everytown, a major gun safety advocacy group, has launched a $2.1 million ad blitz in Pennsylvania targeting Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The effort focuses on mobilizing voters and calling out candidates, including Mastriano and Oz, who the group says are “beholden to the gun lobby.”
In the ad, titled “Home,” the advocacy group hits Oz, arguing that the Senate candidate “will not keep us safe.”
“For too many women, home is the last place they feel safe. Because when an abuser’s armed, women are five times more likely to be killed,” a female narrator says.
“Mehmet Oz would make it easier for domestic abusers to get guns, even opposing background checks on all gun sales,” the narrator continues.
The ads will run on television and across digital platforms starting in the Philadelphia media market, according to Everytown.
Here’s a round up of the latest polling:
Click here to learn about early voting in Pennsylvania.
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