“I don’t know why anyone would want to leave Jersey,” the former “Jersey Shore” star said in a video posted by Mr. Fetterman.
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This article is part of our Midterms 2022 Daily Briefing
John Fetterman campaigning in Pennsylvania in May, before a stroke that has kept him off the campaign trail. He’s posting memes on Twitter instead.
On the list of potential political vulnerabilities, ties to New Jersey are rarely a campaign killer; for all the jokes, New Jersey has offered some of the greatest musical, culinary and cultural additions to the country.
But the campaign of John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania, has been repeatedly nagging his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, for living in New Jersey before announcing his campaign in the Keystone State.
In his latest such post on Twitter, Mr. Fetterman enlisted Nicole Polizzi, a cast member of the “Jersey Shore” franchise better known as Snooki, and a self-described “hot mess on a reality show,” to chide Dr. Oz for choosing to leave New Jersey “to look for a new job.”
“Personally, I don’t know why anyone would want to leave Jersey,” Ms. Polizzi says in the video, which is framed to look like a spot from Cameo, a website that allows users to pay for personal video messages from celebrities (and, apparently, Snookis).
The video, a tongue-in-cheek accusation of carpetbagging, was posted to Mr. Fetterman’s Twitter account, where he has been using memes and other internet “trolling” tactics to remind voters of Dr. Oz’s ties to the Garden State.
Mr. Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke in mid-May, recently copied pictures of Dr. Oz’s mansion in New Jersey from a 2020 spread in People magazine to match a recent campaign ad set that featured Dr. Oz appearing to speak from a room in the expansive home. And Mr. Fetterman’s campaign paid to fly a banner welcoming Dr. Oz back to New Jersey along southern Jersey Shore beaches, according to NJ.com.
A press officer for the Oz campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Dr. Oz has said he lives in Bryn Athyn, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia about 12 miles from the New Jersey border.
Source: nytimes.com
