This is just painfully pathetic:
A recent AARP poll found that Democratic Pennsylvania lieutenant governor John Fetterman is leading Republican Mehmet Oz by six points in their race for the state’s open Senate seat. Another survey, this one conducted by USA Today and Suffolk University, has Fetterman with a nine point lead over his Trump-backed rival. But if the race came down to who’s better at tweeting (an entirely possible scenario in the near future), Fetterman would already have been declared the winner.
“.@JohnFetterman,” Oz tweeted, along with an image of Fetterman’s name in the dictionary. “Noun 1. Bernie Sanders Socialist to the Left of Joe Biden. 2. A political puppet. 3. Radical; wrong for Pennsylvania,” it reads. A poor intern had to make that.
This is how Fetterman fired back:
Oz’s original tweet has less than 230 likes; Fetterman’s reply (the watermark is a nice touch) is nearing 3,000 likes.
FYI:
Fetterman has been winning the internet for sure:
Fetterman’s advisers hope to make authenticity the fulcrum of the campaign — the hoodie-and-shorts-wearing former mayor of a downtrodden steel town on the banks of the Monongahela River versus the Cleveland-born, New Jersey-bred purveyor of sometimes questionable medical advice who misspelled the town in his Pennsylvania address in an official campaign document.
Republican groups allied with Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, meanwhile, are gearing up to hit Fetterman with negative ads portraying his support for universal health care, the federal legalization of cannabis, sweeping criminal justice changes and raising the minimum wage as too left-wing for a swing state like Pennsylvania.
Fetterman has attacked Oz’s credibility with the zeal of dogged internet troll, in one case mocking the Republican nominee for posing in a construction hat by juxtaposing a cartoon image of a small child driving a plastic excavator.
The tweet, a picture caption with the words, “My Dream Construction Truck,” had left-leaning online forums hailing Fetterman’s posting skills with internet-native language like “edgelord,” “dunked on” and “pwned.”
While Fetterman has been recovering at home with family, taking long walks, driving his kids to and from school and shopping at grocery stores, Democrats have been passing out yard signs that say “Oz for New Jersey” and dreaming up new ways to bash their Republican opponent.
Gisele Barreto Fetterman, a Brazilian-born community activist and philanthropist who happens to be a friend of Kim Kardashian, has been lighting up Instagram and other social media platforms with videos of her out and about promoting her husband’s candidacy.
FYI:
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman will return to the campaign trail more than two months after suffering a stroke.
Fetterman, who currently serves as the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, will join the Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania for a reception in Wynnewood, Montgomery County, on July 21. Tickets for the private event range from $100-$2,900.
Fetterman has not been seen or spoken publicly since suffering the stroke prior to the May 17 primary election. The Lt. Governor, who has released videos on social media since being hospitalized, said he “almost died” after ignoring warning signs for years and not taking his medicine.
Speaking of pathetic, here’s the latest on the Governor’s race:
He went on the podcast hosted by former Donald Trump aide and “Stop the Steal” leader Steve Bannon.
He named a former Trump campaign lawyer who tried to overturn Pennsylvania’s election a top legal adviser to his campaign.
He has twice drawn parallels to Nazi Germany in criticizing political opponents.
And just last week, Doug Mastriano shared a meme on social media accusing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and other Democrats of “premeditated murder” over their COVID-19 policies for nursing homes.
Most Republican candidates in Pennsylvania and across the country are hammering Democrats on gas prices, stubbornly high inflation, and homicides in cities like Philadelphia.
Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, hits all those themes, too. But in the five weeks since he won the May 17 primary election, Mastriano has also been sticking to the playbook that has made him a MAGA hero — making inflammatory comments about Democrats and the left, and amplifying Trump’s false election fraud claims.
There are signs that most rank-and-file Republican officials are rallying behind Mastriano.
Days after the primary, a Spotlight PA reporter spotted Mastriano in a restaurant in Harrisburg with Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), who had previously endorsed a rival.
The Senate GOP, which had banned Mastriano from attending caucus meetings, changed course and welcomed him back. And after months in which Senate leadership had effectively blocked Mastriano legislation from advancing, the chamber on June 6 voted in favor of his bill that aims to loosen rules on partisan poll watchers.
That’s despite remarks that underscore why Pennsylvania Republican insiders were nervous about Mastriano’s candidacy at the outset — and scrambled, unsuccessfully, to try to stop him from winning the primary.
After an interviewer compared investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack to the Nazis’ crackdown on civil liberties in the aftermath of the 1933 fire at the German Parliament, Mastriano said he agreed.
“I agree with the political, with the historical analogy there … using something that was very suspicious in Berlin to advance their agenda — you know, the National Socialists there. I do see parallels,” Mastriano told podcast host Ben Stein on June 10, after the Jan. 6 congressional committee held its first public hearing on prime-time television.
“We have, you know, people being publicly arrested for show to send a message,” said Mastriano, who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has been subpoenaed by the committee. “I think what we’re seeing in America now makes McCarthy in the ’50s look like an amateur.”
And as I mentioned before, Shapiro is out rallying up the base:
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for Pa. governor, rallied in defense of abortion rights with hundreds of others at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center on Saturday.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe vs. Wade, abortion is still legal in Pennsylvania. But all eyes are on the governor’s race this November, which may determine the fate of reproductive rights in the state.
The GOP-controlled legislature has repeatedly tried to restrict abortions — and it’s up to the governor to decide whether those bills pass.
Shapiro on Saturday maintained his pledge to protect reproductive rights.
“I believe that abortion is health care, and I will defend it,” Shapiro said. “I trust the women of Pennsylvania to make decisions over your own bodies.”
He urged the crowd to vote in November.
“The reason why I’m hopeful today is because you’re here. It’s because you recognize your power,” he said. “It’s because you recognize to protect these fundamental freedoms here in Pennsylvania, we gotta win a governor’s race. Are you prepared to do that?”
Shapiro’s Republican opponent, State Senator Doug Mastriano, is a devout Christian who has made his religion central to his political career. He supports a total ban on abortion (and introduced a so-called “heartbeat” bill in 2019), without exceptions for rape, incest, and cases in which the life of a parent is at risk. He also supports criminal penalties for doctors and nurses who perform abortions.
When it comes to abortion, Shapiro has made sure to differentiate himself from Mastriano, whom he has called “a radical extremist.”
“You’ve heard him talk a good game about freedom. Well, I say this here in the birthplace of our democracy, it’s not freedom when he tells you what medicines you’re allowed to take. That’s not freedom,” said Shapiro. “It’s not freedom when he tells you how and when and under what terms, you’re allowed to start a family. That’s not freedom.”
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