On the surface it is beyond stupid. It is suicidal. Is he trying to lose?
Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP candidate for governor in Ohio, made an ad that even some Republican officeholders objected to. He defended it. Then he announced he would spend $4 million to promote it.
What’s going on?
The ad features Donna Arthur, the mother of Dr. Amy Acton, Ramaswamy’s Democratic opponet.
“My name is Donna Arthur and I am Amy Acton’s mother. It’s not easy for a mother to say this but Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life. My daughter needs help and she can’t help you if she needs help herself. Don’t vote for people who lie. Don’t let her become your governor if you think she’ll make your life better.”
Here is what the record shows. When Amy Acton, a physician and later director of the Ohio Department of Health, was 12, her stepfather was arrested and charged with raping her. She and her younger brother were removed from their mother’s custody. Donna Arthur stayed married to the man. He was indicted, skipped a court hearing, and was never tried. Acton’s younger brother backs her story and says she took the worst of it to protect him.
At first glance the ad looks like it should backfire. The mother comes across as a woman who lived exactly the hard life Acton describes: a string of partners, a husband she believed over her daughter, children taken from her. And we are supposed to believe her, not her high-performing daughter?
But the ad is pure MAGA positioning. It hits every note for a successor to Donald Trump. It may win Ramaswamy the governor’s office, his best outcome. Win or lose, it positions him, not Marco Rubio or JD Vance, as Trump’s legitimate heir in 2028.
-- It shows Ramaswamy is willing to be the transgressive candidate, to say what “cannot be said.” A big part of Trump’s appeal is that he says things people know are crude and politically incorrect, and it reads as honest and forthright. Vance staked his claim to that ground in 2024 with the story about Haitian immigrants eating pets. Ramaswamy just called that bet and raised it.
-- It casts Ramaswamy as the champion of the common person against the manager and the expert. Trump identified and nurtured the revolt against experts. Dr. Acton, the physician-bureaucrat who was the face of Ohio’s Covid response, carries the worst possible positioning for a Democrat, a Covid czar. The ad plays the note of disbelieving experts.
-- It casts Acton as damaged and unstable. That the mother looks rough is an asset for Ramaswamy. The worse she looks, the stronger the case that Acton is scarred for life by a miserable childhood. Being a survivor cuts both ways. She was strong and showed character. But it also raises suspicion, especially among people already suspicious of experts. She must have spent time on a psychiatrist’s couch. She must carry deep trauma. Megyn Kelly voiced the suspicion on her podcast, saying there is something weird about the way Dr. Acton talks, that her voice is slurred like she is drunk; she said she had heard Acton cried on the job during Covid.
-- “She lies.” Trump got traction as a politician by calling his opponents frauds, illegitimate. Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and the birth records are fake. Elizabeth Warren is Pocahontas, a fake Cherokee. Ted Cruz is “Lyin’ Ted.” Trump’s own flagrant corruption only strengthens the argument that the whole system is rigged and full of frauds. Ramaswamy’s ad is an expression of that idea. So is the way his side has handled the backlash: the outrage itself is fake. Vance said he was “disgusted” by the Republicans who criticized the ad and told them to stop whining and go win. Trump said Ramaswamy wasn’t to blame for the trouble between mother and daughter.
The Ramaswamy ad disgusts me, but it is not directed at me. The ad does not backfire on him. It reminds the solid majority of Ohio voters who chose Trump in 2024 that Ramaswamy is their guy.
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]
4 comments:
This Vivek Ramaswamy advertisement is the lowest of the low.
Donna Arthur chose to keep her perverted husband over the safety of her children. Arthur sacrificed her daughter Amy. Arthur lost custody of Amy Acton when Amy was 12 years old, and has been out of Amy's life for 50 years. That is a telling act when you lose custody of your kids. Arthur doesn't even know Amy. You have to be pretty desperate as a political candidate to run this trash like Vivek did, but we see it every election, including from Brad Hicks. Don't think that the Democrats don't play dirty, too. I wouldn't vote for Vivek just because of this ad.
You gotta wonder how much she was paid to appear in that ad.
Ramasmarmy. 😡
I again assert that a lack of morality has profound consequences. If you like his ad then in my mind you are damaged.
Post a Comment