First, note the location of his visit: the posh Newtown Athletic club, not some dusty old club house.
“I’ve got a lot of guns and I know how to use them,” Oz told the specially invited crowd Sunday afternoon. He was in Pennsylvania, a state he claims to live in, to campaign for Pat Toomey’s senate seat.
Have you noticed that Democrats talk about ideas on the campaign trail? Mario Cuomo (the “good” Cuomo) used to say you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.
Republicans campaign in lists. Oz said he would: fight inflation, combat the influence of China (a jab at his closest opponent, David McCormick, who used to run a hedge fund with huge investments in China), reduce gas prices, support gun rights, protect the unborn, cut regulations and (newly popular) tackle social media companies.
Oz’s visit to Bucks County was part of his “The Doctor Is In” campaign tour. He likes to emphasize the “Dr.” part of his name, his brand, and complained when the Philadelphia Inquirer decided they would refer to him plainly as Mehmet Oz, the same way it refers to the doctors who serve in the senate, to wit Rand Paul. (The Beacon will do likewise.)
The tour had him in Butler, PA, on Tuesday, and in Washington County on Thursday, where he met with voters at a VFW hall and spoke once again about China (imagine that), energy and Covid. He said he was for vaccines, but not vaccine mandates. And, according to the local Observer Reporter, expressed dismay that there were not more studies on the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid. “I really don’t know if it works or not,” he was quoted as saying.
That is an interesting statement from a doctor who appeared on Fox News 25 times promoting hydroxychloroquine as a wonder drug that would cure covid. In fact there were hundreds of tests of hydroxychloroquine, some involving thousands of patients, around the world, done by credible research labs, that showed no benefit whatsoever.
Politicians live in the hope that people have short memories, or that they may still believe a drug like hydroxychloroquine is being kept from them by Big Pharma. Just like the magic weight loss drugs Mehmet Oz promoted on his television show.
Back to his appearance on Sunday in Bucks County reported by Tom Sofield. Oz stated that a baby’s life begins at conception, a view that makes birth control a form of abortion, since an IUD may stop a fertilized egg from implanting.
Not surprisingly, Oz said that Oprah would stay out of the senate race in Pennsylvania. (Otherwise, Oprah, you have a lot of ‘splaining to do.)
At the NAC he said he wanted to fund a study of hydroxychloroquine but could not get the backing he needed. Imagine a lack of support for a Mehmet Oz study!
Finally, he repeated that he and his wife live in Montgomery County. Just to make sure we didn’t think they actually lived in their mansion in New Jersey.
This, mind you, was on Sunday.
Oz was invited to appear at a forum at Villanova University for the senate candidates on Monday night. Seeing as how he and his wife are living in Bryn Athyn, only 37 minutes from Villanova, it should not have been a problem for him to make it there. But Oz’s campaign informed the people at Villanova ahead of time that he would be unavailable.
Hearing that, McCormick said he, too, was unavailable. And so did candidate Carla Sands. All three of them have been accused of being carpetbaggers (McCormick from Connecticut, Sands from California). And all three of them shrugged off a chance to be on stage with four lesser candidates.
Three of the four of those candidates wanted to finish Trump’s border wall: Kathy Barnette, George Bochetto and Jeff Bartos. And then there was the candidate who stole the show, Everette Stern, from Chester County, who said the border wall didn’t make much sense, and that he wanted to save the GOP from the “right-wing extremism” that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bartos, who actually does live in Montgomery County, said, of Oz, McCormick, and Sands: “They don’t live here. They couldn’t bother to show up tonight.” Bitter words, Bartos.
