Dr. Mehmet Oz (R-PA) |
So when Mehmet Oz (aka Dr. Oz made famous from his many appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show) announced for the Senate, I wasn't immediately taken to making jokes about it, even if it caught the larger public consciousness by surprise. Dr. Oz has been toying with this run for weeks, and I know better after Jesse Ventura (and certainly after Donald Trump) than to not take a celebrity candidate seriously. But more so I know the dynamics of the Pennsylvania Republican primary put Oz in an unusually strong position that he might not be in, say, North Carolina or Ohio.
That's because the Pennsylvania Republican primary has largely been a flat affair. While Democrats quickly lined up a frontrunner (John Fetterman), a clear second place that could upset (Conor Lamb), and a respectable outsider (Val Arkoosh), giving us a primary that, provided it doesn't get too negative, will produce a viable general election candidate, the Keystone Republicans have struggled to do the same. Several of the best candidates (Ryan Costello, Charlie Dent) seemed to assume that they couldn't survive a primary & while they're reportedly still toying with the idea, I don't think are plausible options in the Trump Era. Other candidates like Mike Kelly simply declined. And the Republican primary frontrunner Sean Parnell suspended his campaign recently amid a messy custody hearing.
This means that Oz is now the highest-profile candidate in a race that is slowly closing (with a March 8th filing deadline). Other candidates could get in, and Oz could falter, but he's a famous name in a race that has none. And as a result, you wouldn't be foolish to describe Oz as being the frontrunner, though I wouldn't go that far quite yet (though, like I said, I'm taking him seriously). Oz comes with some uniquenesses beyond celebrity. He's a doctor in an era where doctors have been celebrated repeatedly (albeit demonized by Oz's own party), and he has decades of goodwill on The Oprah Winfrey Show to fall back (it does not appear, at least as of when I'm writing this on Friday morning, that Winfrey has endorsed in this race or even made a statement on it yet). Republicans, who have struggled to make inroads with female voters, might be intrigued by a the potential cache of someone associated with Winfrey in the race.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) |
I've seen a few allusions of paths that Oz could follow, but I think my friend Drew might've gotten it best when he said that Oz had vibes of Al Franken's chances in 2008, which I think is quite apt. Franken, like Oz, came into his race with a lot of baggage (forgetting the reasons that Franken would eventually resign which weren't public at the time, Franken's comedy bits had had a lot of humor about women that many felt bordered on the sexist and, at the very least, made him vulnerable). But similar to Pennsylvania, after several prominent Minnesota Democrats (Mike Hatch, Betty McCollum, Mike Ciresi) either dropped out or refused to run, Franken became the most plausible Democratic nominee. He also won the general election, less because he ran a great campaign (Franken's 2014 campaign was very strong, his 2008 one was much weaker), but because the national environment allowed for a candidate who wouldn't otherwise win to take the W. Democrats will bristle comparing Oz to someone they agree with to Franken, but it's accurate because Franken would've lost in most circumstances in his first race (I'd argue he couldn't have taken Minnesota as a non-incumbent in 2012 or 2016 even as the state went blue for Obama/Clinton), but he picked the right year to do it. Republicans will be taking a risk betting on Oz, a non-serious person who could well be given the nomination to one of the most important Senate races in the country, but past precedent is not necessarily against Oz, and only foolish Democrats would look at this as a gimme race or a contest they shouldn't bring their A-Game.
3 comments:
As always, nicely written, John.
One thing I've wondered -- do you think Dr. Oz being a Turkish-American Muslim will hurt him in the primary (or even the general)? The GOP doesn't exactly have a reputation of being welcoming to Muslims. I hate suggesting this given that I too am from a minority faith (albeit a Democrat), but I've noticed no one's really talked about this despite the party's well-known conspiracies about Obama.
That's a decent question, though I will note that Republicans are weirdly good at getting even their most rabid base to compartmentalize for cleared primaries. Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Burgess Owens...all of them were able to clear through without a lot of issue despite their party struggling with using racist/xenophobic tactics against Democratic opponents. I think if Oz is the nominee, this would not be an issue...I think, however, if someone like Haley or Scott run for president it'd be a concern for their campaigns mostly because I think that another candidate would be willing to try this tactic in a way that they wouldn't in a downballot race. That's just my two cents, but it's definitely an odd conundrum that the GOP doesn't usually have this issue with its own candidates, even if they regularly levy these attacks on Democrats.
That makes sense. Thanks!
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