Pittsburgh Post-Gazette endorses ‘unifier’ Oz over ‘troubling’ Fetterman

Pittsburgh’s largest newspaper endorsed Republican Mehmet Oz Tuesday within the high-stakes Pennsylvania Senate race over progressive John Fetterman — calling the Democrat’s refusal to launch his medical information “troubling.”

The Pittsburgh Publish-Gazette lauded Oz, 62, as a “unifier” who will “work with Democrats to get issues completed for Pennsylvania.”

The editorial insisted the surgeon-turned-TV personality-turned-political hopeful reveals the “potential to change into an influential, considerate and impartial senator.”

“Mr. Oz is likable, participating, extraordinarily good and a superb listener,” it continued, noting that the candidate “spent loads of time in poor city neighborhoods, speaking to individuals and, most essential, listening and studying.”

The well-respected publication, a longtime liberal-leaning paper whose editorial board now slants to the center-right, additionally insisted that Oz is “extra reasonable on some points than portrayed” by progressive critics.

“We don’t consider he will probably be a stooge for the far proper,” the editorial board wrote.

In contrast, the Publish-Gazette expressed considerations about Fetterman’s refusal to launch his medical information after struggling a stroke in Might.

It warned that the shortage of transparency “suggests an impulse to hide and a distrust of the individuals.”

The editorial board additionally took problem with the 53-year-old’s “life expertise and maturity” — claiming his “good” work enhancing lives as mayor of small-town Braddock was solely made potential as a result of household cash backed his $150-a-week wage.

The paper additionally mentioned it was “troubling” that the present lieutenant governor by no means apologized for pulling a shotgun on an unarmed black jogger in 2013 after listening to photographs fired.

The hotly contested race is taken into account certainly one of 4 races that may determine management of the deadlocked Senate, which Democrats now maintain by the narrowest of margins because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

Fetterman holds a 1.4-point lead, which has considerably narrowed from as a lot as an 11-point benefit lower than two months in the past, in response to ballot aggregator FiveThirtyEight.

The race had additional tightened after a largely incoherent debate efficiency by Fetterman final week, through which he struggled to place sentences collectively at instances and flipflopped on the difficulty of fracking, strolling again his acknowledged opposition to the observe, which is a key a part of western Pennsylvania’s economic system.

Fetterman had additionally taken warmth for his assist of Philadelphia District Lawyer Larry Krasner’s felony justice reforms, below which murders within the Metropolis of Brotherly Love soared to a report excessive final 12 months.

Oz, a longtime New Jersey resident who’s endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has additionally made inroads within the polls by canvassing Pennsylvania to press the flesh with voters in nearly each nook of the state of 13 million, regardless of being attacked by his rival as an elitist carpetbagger who’s out of contact with the considerations of working-class residents.