A parody Twitter account created by a Pittsburgh based paralegal is causing fresh headaches for the Senate campaign of Dr. Mehmet Oz.
The account, created earlier this month, mocks an April campaign video of the veteran TV host botching the name of a Wegmans grocery store as it casts the candidate as out of touch with the Pennsylvania voters he’s hoping to represent.
The campaign video shows the Republican walking through a Wegmans market in Pennsylvania, where he mispronounces the name of the store as “Wegners” and complains about inflation and the soaring costs of vegetables needed to make a “crudites” platter, which is more commonly known as a vegetable platter. Oz told Newsmax in a recent interview that he got the name of the store wrong because he was exhausted after campaigning 18 hours a day. “I’ve gotten my kids names wrong as well. I don’t think that’s a measure of someone’s ability to lead the commonwealth,” he said.
Jon Romanishin, a paralegal from Pennsylvania, jumped on Oz’s mispronunciation of the Wegmans grocery store chain to launch the parody Twitter account Monday @grocerieswegner or Wegner’s Groceries, which isn’t a real store. The Twitter bio reads “The Crudité Capital of Central PA.”
In a tweet that night, Romanishin embedded the Oz video and wrote “We repeatedly told @DrOz that we had pre-made veggie trays..excuse me ‘Crudité’…in the deli starting at $5.99. $7.99 with guacamole and salsa. Vote @JohnFetterman!” He told CNBC in an interview on Thursday that since he published the tweet, the video has received almost 4 million views.
Oz’s original video has been shared more than 300 times on Facebook and 600 times on Twitter, reaching more than 250,000 people, while the parody tweet has been shared over 4,000 times on Facebook and 62,000 times on Twitter, reaching more than 32 million people, according to social media tracking site CrowdTangle.
John Fetterman, his Democratic Party rival running for the same Pennsylvania Senate seat, seized on the free social media, relentlessly mocking Oz for his use of the high-brow term crudites, a French word that’s pronounced kroo-de-tay. His campaign raised $500,000 within 24 hours of the video’s release on social media.
Fetterman and Oz are vying for a Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. A Real Clear Politics polling average has Fetterman ahead of Oz by around eight percentage points.
Since the Monday launch, the Twitter account now has more than 23,000 followers, including Fetterman’s campaign account.
Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic Party strategist, told CNBC that the account represents how the digital age has transformed campaigns and that sometimes, to give a boost to a candidate, all it takes is someone with a social media account. “Anyone with a social media account can now change a race as much as any ad, story or debate,” she said. “That puts more political power in the hands of people and when used well it’s good for democracy.”
The Wegner’s…
Read More: A parody Twitter account mocking Dr. Oz’s ‘crudites’ video goes viral