Eat Your Veggies
I had never heard of a crudité until about a week ago. I’m guessing most of you had not either. Granted, I’m not big into eating fruits and vegetables anyway, but the internet leads me to believe crudités are French appetizers consisting of sliced or whole raw vegetables, typically dipped in a sauce of some kind.
Or as it was probably labeled when I was at the grocery store the other night, a “veggie platter”.
Unforced errors can cripple a campaign, and I have to think that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, did himself no favors with a social media video that has now gone viral. He was trying to come across as an average guy complaining about high prices in the grocery store. That’s not only a fair point, but probably a winning issue for Republicans in November.
But instead of grabbing a carton of milk, a pound of ground beef, or a head of lettuce…he bemoaned how much it would cost for his wife to make a crudité…aka veggie platter. Talk about sounding out of touch with voters.
No one is going to believe that Oz is an average guy, really…he’s Dr. Oz, after all. But this attempt badly backfired, especially since it could have gone very well—just pick items on an average household’s grocery list, ones we who do our family shopping know, and note how much more we’re paying now than just a year and a half ago.
Recall when George H.W. Bush went to a grocery convention and marveled at the UPC codes and scanners that were then in use? That was sort of fake news…it was portrayed that he had never seen them before, but what was new at the time was a scale built in to the whole thing—that’s what he was referring to when he said it was “amazing” technology. The news media left that nuance out and portrayed Bush as being out of touch with basic technology that had been in stores for a decade at the time.
That was literally 30 years ago and I’m guessing many today still think the fake news was the real story. That one is on the media.
But Oz shopping not for vegetables but for ingredients for a crudité is an unforced error, and one which could make a difference in what is bound to be a close and pivotal race.
