Vivek Ramaswamy’s dirty political schemes are making history.
The Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee’s boorish ad campaign against Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton has inspired one of Ohio’s oldest newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to break company policy in Acton’s favor.
The paper had stated a few months ago it would not make political endorsements, including in the governor’s race. But on Sunday, its editorial board published a statement declaring it stood firmly behind Acton.
The weekly’s decision is just the latest in a tsunami of public backlash against Ramaswamy and his team after they aired an advert earlier this month that featured Acton’s estranged mother Donna Arthur. In the ad, Arthur claimed that “Amy has a serious problem.”
The MAGA Republicans arranged the cameo despite the fact that Acton had not spoken to her mother since she was 12 years old, and that Arthur abandoned her two children to skip town with her husband, who was indicted for allegedly raping Acton when she was a young girl.
“A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.
“We are better than this. We have a responsibility to show it,” it continued. “We made our endorsement policy to serve our readers. We cannot let it become a reason to remain silent when we believe Ohio faces a choice this consequential.”
Dozens of Republicans—including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine—have since come out against Ramaswamy’s tasteless advert, advising the former Trump official to take it down.
Nonetheless, Ramaswamy has repeatedly defended the ad. On Friday he told the Ohio Capitol Journal that the message had “nothing to do with childhood abuse, sexual abuse.”
“Our ad was about a consistent track record of Amy Acton telling lies, including during this campaign,” Ramaswamy said.
But the voting public has not seen it that way. Protesters have begun to appear outside of Ramaswamy’s speaking engagements. At a campaign event in Strongsville last week, demonstrators held up signs that likened Ramaswamy to a snake: “Nobody slithers lower than Vivek #VileAds,” read one posterboard recorded by the Journal. Others said Ramaswamy “defends child predators,” protects “pedos,” and “exploits child abuse for votes.”
The negative rhetoric has begun to materialize in damaging ways for the biotech billionaire. Several Ohio venues cancelled Ramaswamy’s speaking events over the weekend, apparently concerned about the fallout should they be affiliated with his drowning reputation.