Dr. Oz Prescribes Team Gardner for Senate Bid

You’re a doctor? And you want my recommendation?

We’ve been meaning to take note of an interesting bit of Republican consultant recycling taking place in Pennsylvania in the 2022 election cycle.

As you may have seen, Mehmet Oz, better known as celebrity television physician “Dr. Oz,” is seeking the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania next year (a state in which he may or may not actually live). The campaign team assembled by “Dr. Oz” will be familiar to Colorado political observers, as POLITICO reports:

Casey Contres, a Pennsylvania native who served as chief of staff for Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and campaign manager for former Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), is running Oz’s campaign.

Chris Hansen, former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is consulting for the campaign, along with strategists Jon Lerner and Larry Weitzner.

Casey Contres and Chris Hansen were longtime aides and confidants to Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who was thoroughly pummeled in his 2020 re-election bid by Democrat John Hickenlooper. That Gardner nearly lost by double digits as an incumbent Senator apparently does not concern Dr. Oz.

We’re not sure we’d want to follow Gardner’s example. But then, we aren’t doctors.