Vivek Ramaswamy is unpopular. Particularly so this week, over a malicious attack ad against his Democratic opponent for the Ohio governorship, Amy Acton. The ad, which surfaced online on Monday before eventually being claimed by the campaign, features Acton’s estranged mother, Dorothy, decrying her daughter as a liar and mentally unwell.
It was already a matter of public record that Acton and her younger brother have been estranged from their mother after Acton was allegedly raped by her stepfather at age 12.
As National Review reported, “Court records confirm many key parts of Acton’s account of her life,” including contemporaneous accounts of the abuse.
Cockburn wonders what, exactly, Ramaswamy or his campaign expected to come from this ad
“While Donna Arthur was married to Cledith Arthur in 1978 when Acton was 12 years old, Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with her, documents show. Evidence against him included a sworn statement from Acton’s biological father, and Acton herself was called to testify as a witness. Following his indictment by a grand jury, Cledith Arthur skipped town.”
Who, you might reasonably wonder, would be so politically maladroit as to run such an ad without doing their due diligence?
Readers might remember Vivek Ramaswamy from his brief run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, where he sought to ingratiate himself with the eventual nominee, Donald Trump, through strident flim-flam and authentic unlikability. His toadying earned him the role of co-head, along with Elon Musk, of the newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency (DoGE) – a position he never actually ended up assuming.
As is typical of Ramaswamy, the ad’s mendacity was bested only by the bungling of its execution. The timeline of events, as far as Cockburn can recount, goes thus: tight in the polls, Ramaswamy’s campaign produced the ad with Acton’s mother; they soft-launched the ad without attribution or disclaimer from their campaign to a selected portion of voters and activists and ran polling on the ad using the market research firm Dynata; the ad was subsequently leaked online, and garnered widespread condemnation.
Then, when confronted about it at a Tuesday campaign stop, Ramaswamy confirmed the ad came from the campaign and doubled-down, announcing a $4 million ad buy behind it.
Ramaswamy had to bring out Acton’s negligent, convicted-criminal mother to brand her a liar, you see, because Acton started it: “I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans,” he said. “And unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues. She won’t debate me; she doesn’t allow cameras at her events.” He also accused her of spreading “defamatory, disparaging lies about me and my family.” But “who started it” is irrelevant. As any football fan could tell you, the referee always flags the guy who retaliates, especially when that response is disproportionate.
Cockburn wonders what, exactly, Ramaswamy or his campaign expected to come from this ad. Like a dime-store firework, it has backfired as predictably and explosively as you would expect. Its leaking was met with immediate disapproval and condemnation, including from Republicans. Even some who originally promoted the ad, such as Senator Mike Lee’s chief strategist, have walked it back and apologized once the full story was more thoroughly publicized. And Acton’s campaign promptly responded with an ad of their own, featuring her brother corroborating her past of abuse and lambasting Ramaswamy.
That’s not to say all Republicans recoiled from such blatant political malpractice. Never one to miss a derisory opportunity, Vice President J.D. Vance on Wednesday proclaimed his support for Ramaswamy and the ad at an event in Ohio, calling Acton a “liar.”
At least someone on Ramaswamy’s campaign, it seems to Cockburn, understood this ad was a bad idea, hence the obscurant inelegance of the rollout. Sadly, that person was not Ramaswamy himself. Again, Vivek has shown us who he is: less a candidate than a farrago of bad instincts, rank unpleasantry and Dickensian megalomania.
Comments