Even Ohio’s Republican Governor Blasts Ramaswamy.
Ohio Governor’s Race Background
Popular Information: At 12 years old, Amy Acton was the victim of sexual abuse. After her stepfather was indicted on charges of raping Acton, her estranged mother, Donna Arthur, took her stepfather’s side and left the state with him as he fled justice.
Now, Acton is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Ohio and her Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, is turning her history of abuse into a political attack ad. In the ad, Arthur accuses Acton of lying about her past.
The ad began circulating on social media on Monday night when it was included in a political survey. On Tuesday evening, Ramaswamy told reporters that the ad came from his campaign but had not yet been shown on TV. Despite bipartisan backlash, Ramaswamy’s campaign decided to dig in later on Tuesday night, spending $4 million to air the ad across Ohio.
In the ad, Arthur did not specifically mention the rape charges against her husband, but repeatedly called her daughter a liar. “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,” Arthur said.
Arthur’s account, however, is not credible.
Court records indicate that Acton’s stepfather was found living in a tent when Acton was a child, and Acton’s campaign provided documents to CBS indicating that the family lived in a tent for a year.
Arthur has previously claimed that Acton lied about being raped by her stepfather. In a 2020 interview with an anti-abortion group called Operation Rescue, Arthur said, “I haven’t seen my daughter since she was 12 years old and that was when my daughter lied and said my second husband raped her.”
Acton’s stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged with raping Acton in 1978. He pleaded not guilty but was later indicted by a grand jury. Arthur supported her husband after his arrest. She went with him when he fled Ohio for Pennsylvania to avoid prosecution, abandoning her children. Cledith Arthur never returned to Ohio, despite warrants for his arrest. He died in 2004.
Question of the Day
Q: Why or how could anyone be stupid enough to run that ad?
A: Desperation
The bipartisan backlash was quick, except for J.D. Vance, who is going to regret his stupid comments.
J.D. Vance Defends the Ad
Yesterday, NBC reported J.D. Vance tells Ohio Republicans to ‘stop whining’ about ad with Acton’s mother
Vice President J.D. Vance told Ohio Republicans to “stop whining” about an advertisement taking spotlight in the state governor’s race.
“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” Vance said at an appearance in Cincinnati.
“I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans,” Ramaswamy said Tuesday night at an appearance in Westerville. “Unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues.”
The ad was initially posted to social media without clarification as to who sponsored it, but Ramaswamy later said his campaign would spend $4 million on the ad and plans to put it on TV.
In response, Acton’s campaign released an ad featuring Acton’s brother, who testified to the abuse in their childhood.
“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Phillip Stearns, Acton’s brother, said in the response ad. “She continued to receive that abuse, because she knew she had to protect me from that, and that if she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would have ended up?”
“Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” Vance said.
Whining Hypocrites
Talk about whining. Listen to whiner J.D. Vance siding with pedophiles in attack ads. Well, that’s par for this administration.
And look, hypocrite Ramaswamy running the stupidest political ad in history, whining about wanting a campaign run on issues.
Even Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine could not take it.
Ohio Governor Blasts Ramaswamy’s Attack Ad
NBC reports Ohio Governor calls for Ramaswamy to Pull Ad Featuring Acton’s Mother
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday called for Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to pull an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother.
The ad features Acton’s mother calling her daughter a liar and urging Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton and her mother have been estranged since 1978 when her mother’s husband was arrested for allegedly raping the then-12-year-old Acton.
“It was wrong to run this ad,” DeWine said. “I would urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down. It’s just wrong.”
While he called for the ad to be pulled, DeWine said he was not changing his endorsement. “What Mike DeWine thinks, or endorses, is pretty irrelevant,” DeWine said. “What’s not irrelevant is this ad. This ad is relevant, it’s wrong. It needs to be taken down.”
“In regard to telling the truth, my experience with her working closely with her every single day, she certainly told the truth, in my experience,” DeWine said
Political Suicide
- Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina sharply criticized the ad, calling it “the most shameful, disgusting, offensive ad this election season.”
- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the ad “needs to come down.”
- Republican Sen. John Husted of Ohio told the Associated Press he would not have aired the commercial.
- Republican Lydia Mihalik, director of the Ohio Department of Development and former mayor of Findlay, wrote on X: “I don’t have to agree with Amy Acton’s politics to believe that exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong. … There is a difference between fighting for your principles and abandoning them to win.”
- Former Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who is now a prominent MAGA critic, wrote on X: “This Ramaswamy ad in OH is looking more and more like political suicide.”
- Chris Christie via Washington Post: “Seriously? The question for all Republicans is whether this type of attitude is what we want leading our party going forward. For the last decade, our party has been infected by a corrupted moral center. Vance’s acceptance of this campaign ad only breathes life into the disease that we should be seeking to cure.”
Too Late to Pull
It’s too late to pull the ad. The damage is done. It was stupid to run it. And it is stupid to defend it.
Officially, DeWine supports the Republican ticket.
Unofficially, read between the lines. “She [Democrat Governor Candidate Amy Acton] certainly told the truth, in my experience,” says all you need to know.
This Governor’s Race Is Over
Sabato’s Crystal Ball reports Ohio to Leans Democratic Among Other Changes as Dems Eye Gubernatorial Majority
Sabato is at least as cautious as Cook Political.
By the time Sabato makes a shift, it’s obvious to the world that a shift happened long ago.
Crystal Ball Gubernatorial Changes
What Sabato calls leans, I call likely. That’s a net pickup of two governor seats.
I have Georgia no worse than tilt Democrat, which would make +3, and Nevada a genuine tossup for a potential +4.
A 60% chance is not a tossup in my book, but there is no official definition of tilt, lean, likely, or solid.
Proposal
46-54: Tossup
55-62: Tilt
63-75: Lean
76-90: Likely
91+: Solid
Sabato’s Cloudy Ball
Sabato sees races others rate at 70 percent still labeled tossups.
It should not take a lot of courage to move the Ohio Governor’s race to lean Democrat. But it did.
And Sabato’s Cloudy Ball still has Ohio Senate rated as a tossup, which I find ridiculous.
Ohio Senate Polymarket
For Ohio Senate, Silver Deluxe is 72.5 Democrat and Polymarket took a leap to 70.0 percent today, possibly on Ramaswamy’s idiotic ad that should end his political career.
Sabato’s Cloudy Ball is useless other than as lagging confirmation of what everyone else already knows.
The End of Ramaswamy’s Political Career?
That preposterous ad should be an unrecoverable error. Let’s hope so, along with John Paxton in Texas.
It’s time to boot all these pedophile-protecting cretins from office permanently.
Addendum – Including Trump
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We are nearing the “stick a fork in it” stage.
A Republican bloodbath is on the way. All that remains to be seen is how bloody it gets.
Article posted with permission from Mish Shedlock
