Ads Attacking Dr. Oz
A super PAC that supports Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick has been flooding the airwaves in the Keystone State with ads attacking his opponent, cardiac surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, as a “Hollywood liberal” and RINO, or Republican in Name Only.
The ads tie Oz to the widespread hiring of immigrants who are in the country illegally, saying, “Oz’s family company hired illegal immigrants.” Oz is a shareholder but had no role in running the company.
The ads also point to prior statements Oz has made on the Affordable Care Act, abortion and gun laws. Oz has taken public positions in the campaign contrary to those past statements.
One of the ads also accuses Oz of being “liberal” and “woke” because he “posted about Black Lives Matter on social media.” Oz posted a message about “systemic racism” in the medical field that creates “disparities in the health outcomes of black people.” The post linked to a video about health that briefly mentions and shows protests over the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. But Oz said he does “not support the actions being taken by the Black Lives Matter organization and its leadership” and that “BLM has the wrong approach at every level.”
Oz and McCormick, and groups supporting them, have been trading attack ads on the Pennsylvania airwaves for weeks. (See our analysis of some of the attack ad claims being levied by the Oz camp against McCormick here.)
According to a recent Trafalgar Group poll, Oz is the leading candidate in the Republican primary, with McCormick running second in a very crowded Republican primary field. Other candidates include: Carla Sands, former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Denmark; conservative commentator Kathy Barnette; and real estate investor Jeff Bartos. They are seeking to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pat Toomey.
The ads targeting Oz come from, a super PAC supporting McCormick. Many of the claims in the ads are the same, and seek to portray Oz as a liberal masquerading as a conservative. We’ll provide some context about the claims.
