Political attack ads are nothing new, but Vivek Ramaswamy’s latest one in Ohio’s gubernatorial race takes things to a whole new level.
The ad features Amy Acton’s own mother urging voters not to elect her.
“My name is Donna Arthur, and I’m Amy Acton’s mother. I worked at Children and Family Service Association, building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America. I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent, it’s not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem,” Arthur began in the ad.
“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,” she claimed.
“People can change, but first they have to tell the truth,” she continued. “And my daughter still isn’t doing that. Don’t vote for people who lie. Don’t let her become your governor.”
“If you think she’ll make your life better, you’re fooling yourself. It will only get worse,” she added.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad like that before. It’s brutal,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere says.
“It’s very powerful,” co-host Dave Landau agrees.
“And you even listen to her, even though she comes off like a woman who you’d have at Christmas that you would ignore,” he adds.
Stu points out that despite the “powerful” ad, there are “complications” to the backstory.
“Reporters are very upset about this. Like they immediately have taken sides in this inter-family dispute. You can say we shouldn’t air these inter-family disputes in the middle of a campaign. That’s a plausible opinion if you want,” Stu says.
“But what’s interesting about what the media has done,” he adds, “is they’ve just immediately embraced Amy Acton’s side of the story, right?”
Stu plays a clip of Ramaswamy addressing the ad, admitting that it is “an ad from our campaign.”
“And the thing that I want to say is that I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans. And unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues. She won’t debate me,” he explained.
“She doesn’t allow cameras at her events. And I think her record of continuously, certainly during this campaign, I would say spreading some defamatory, disparaging lies about me and my family that does deserve to be scrutinized,” he continued.
“I’ve never met Amy Acton, which is a regret. I wish I’d met at least my opponent. I’ve also never met her mother. She was not compensated. I asked my team that question because we’ve got the question,” he added.
“Now look, there is a complicating circumstance,” Stu comments. “I did want to bring this up because I think it’s an important part of the story. The reason why there’s all this outrage is the split between Amy Acton and her mom is a terrible, terrible story.”
“Including claims of abuse. The claim was that Amy Acton was abused by her stepfather, and basically the mom sided with the stepfather,” he adds.
“Well, there’s three sides to every story, Stu,” Dave says.
“There’s one side, another side, and then there’s the truth,” he adds.