“Mehmet Oz has shown he is better equipped to lead and deliver for Pennsylvania”
Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, John Fetterman’s hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, endorsed Dr. Oz to serve as Pennsylvania’s next U.S. Senator over Fetterman. Yikes.
They wrote, “We believe Mr. Oz is the better bet for Pennsylvania.”
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Mr. Fetterman’s life experience and maturity are also concerns. He has lived off his family’s money for much of his life. That has allowed him to do some good things, including mentoring disadvantaged young people and working to improve community policing and economic development in Braddock. That work, along with his six-foot-eight frame, shaved head and tattoos, attracted national media attention. Still, Mr. Fetterman, despite his hoodies and shorts, has little experience in holding real jobs or facing the problems of working people.
In 2013, as the mayor of Braddock, Mr. Fetterman, after hearing gunshots, pulled a shotgun on an unarmed Black jogger. It was, we believe, an honest mistake. Still, it’s troubling that Mr. Fetterman never apologized for it. And during Tuesday’s debate, confronted with his 2018 statement that he didn’t support fracking, Mr. Fetterman still said, with a straight face, that he always supported fracking.
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Unlike most Republican politicians, candidate Oz spent a lot of time in poor urban neighborhoods, talking to people and, most important, listening and learning. He is more moderate on some issues than portrayed. We don’t believe he will be a stooge for the far right or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. We hope that Mr. Oz will disappoint them and serve in the Pennsylvania tradition of moderate Republicans, such U.S. Sens. John Heinz, Hugh Scott, and Richard Schweiker.
We’re encouraged that Mr. Oz is portraying himself as a unifier who will work with Democrats to get things done for Pennsylvania. It remains to be seen whether he can pull that off, but he has the potential to become an influential, thoughtful and independent senator. Mr. Oz is likable, engaging, extremely smart and a good listener. Yes, he can sound like a smooth-talking salesman, but that may be what it takes to get deals done in Washington.
In a race on which much depends and little is certain, Mehmet Oz has shown he is better equipped to lead and deliver for Pennsylvania.
Read full article HERE.
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