The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which covers the heavily-Democratic Allegheny County and John Fetterman’s adopted hometown of Braddock, has endorsed Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. The newspaper lauded Dr. Oz as a “unifier” who will reach across the aisle to get things done. By contrast, they painted Fetterman as inexperienced and ineffective at combating real-world problems.
NY POST: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette endorses ‘unifier’ Oz over ‘troubling’ Fetterman
Jesse O’neill; November 1, 2022
Pittsburgh’s largest newspaper endorsed Republican Mehmet Oz Tuesday in the high-stakes Pennsylvania Senate race over progressive John Fetterman — calling the Democrat’s refusal to release his medical records “troubling.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette lauded Oz, 62, as a “unifier” who will “work with Democrats to get things done for Pennsylvania.”
The editorial insisted the surgeon-turned-TV personality-turned-political hopeful shows the “potential to become an influential, thoughtful and independent senator.”
“Mr. Oz is likable, engaging, extremely smart and a good listener,” it continued, noting that the candidate “spent a lot of time in poor urban neighborhoods, talking to people and, most important, listening and learning.”
The well-respected publication, a longtime liberal-leaning paper whose editorial board now slants to the center-right, also insisted that Oz is “more moderate on some issues than portrayed” by progressive critics.
“We don’t believe he will be a stooge for the far right,” the editorial board wrote.
By contrast, the Post-Gazette expressed concerns about Fetterman’s refusal to release his medical records after suffering a stroke in May.
It warned that the lack of transparency “suggests an impulse to conceal and a mistrust of the people.”
The editorial board also took issue with the 53-year-old’s “life experience and maturity” — claiming his “good” work improving lives as mayor of small-town Braddock was only made possible because family money subsidized his $150-a-week salary.
The paper also said it was “troubling” that the current lieutenant governor never apologized for pulling a shotgun on an unarmed black jogger in 2013 after hearing shots fired.
The hotly contested race is considered one of four races that will decide control of the deadlocked Senate, which Democrats now hold by the narrowest of margins thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
Fetterman holds a 1.4-point lead, which has significantly narrowed from as much as an 11-point advantage less than two months ago, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
The race had further tightened after a largely incoherent debate performance by Fetterman last week, in which he struggled to put sentences together at times and flipflopped on the issue of fracking, walking back his stated opposition to the practice, which is a key part of western Pennsylvania’s economy.
Fetterman had also taken heat for his support of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s criminal justice reforms, under which murders in the City of Brotherly Love soared to a record high last year.
Oz, a longtime New Jersey resident who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has also made inroads in the polls by canvassing Pennsylvania to press the flesh with voters in almost every corner of the state of 13 million, despite being attacked by his rival as an elitist carpetbagger who is out of touch with the concerns of working-class residents.
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