Why John Fetterman's Twitter trolling of Dr. Oz works so well
Months ago, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman was forced off the campaign trail in his race for the U.S. Senate after he had a stroke and underwent surgery to install a pacemaker. In place of the in-person politicking that he relied on to win his primary race, his team has been forced to get creative in the contest against the GOP candidate, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
There’s a lot of trolling in politics these days, and it often includes inflammatory statements focused on race or immigration status. In a marvelous subversion of those smear tactics, Fetterman’s team argues that Oz is an immigrant who doesn’t connect with the history and culture of Pennsylvanians and doesn’t understand the values of the people he seeks to represent. Not because Oz’s parents were born in Turkey. That’s not a problem. The problem is Oz is from New Jersey.
Oz as a New Jerseyan is a theme the Fetterman campaign and its supporters have hammered hard on the past few weeks. There was the video from “Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi wishing Oz luck on his move to Pennsylvania to “look for a new job.” There was the compilation of Oz’s mansions, not one of which is in Pennsylvania. And most recently, there was a video of Fetterman launching a petition to get Oz inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
“Where are you from?” can be a loaded question, but you’d think that by time candidates decide to begin begging a community for its support, they would be able to provide an answer. It’s almost always a mess when they aren’t, as we saw in New York when skepticism over mayoral candidate Eric Adams’ home address ran high. But Oz’s inability to provide a satisfying answer has left him vulnerable to the constant and cheerful hits Fetterman’s camp doles out.
In general, being a newcomer to a state may matter even less today than it did when Hillary Clinton won a New York Senate seat in 2000; still, Fetterman’s campaign accusing Oz of being an outsider has been deployed with tremendous skill against the Republican who was living in New Jersey as recently as 2020.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/why-john-fetterman-s-twitter-trolling-dr-oz-works-so-n1297452
It wasn't "months" ago like they make it sound. By my count it was 7 or 8 weeks.
= new reply since forum marked as read
With love to all of my New Jersey friends
I watched the Chris Hayes piece, and Fetterman is indeed kicking Oz on social media, but this needs to be on regular TV ads. Many more Pennsylvanians would see anti-Oz ads on TV, especially older Pennsylvanians who don't do social media. Here in the Lehigh Valley of PA, I've seen the latest Fetterman ad ("I don't look like a typical politician..."
which is very good positive for Fetterman, but I've seen no anti-Oz ads.
Tweeted in the past hour -
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Today is a *very* big day for Dr. Oz
It's NEW JERSEY DAY!!! 🎉🎉🎉
11:28 AM · Jul 27, 2022
What I have noticed with respect to his trolling tweets - the various local PA print/online news outlets (although not so much here in Philly) have actually reported/paraphrased/summarized his tweets. So some are getting the gist of what he is doing if they actually follow politics.
Glad you caught one of his ads on TV! 