Ohio update

I spent a week in Ohio to go to the dentist and doctor before our next extended Copenhagen trip and while there I checked in on the Amy Acton campaign. A friend is in Acton’s “bellweather” group (early supporters and donors) so she gets invites to “bellweather” events and I asked if I could tag along.

Acton has chosen David Pepper as a running mate. Pepper is the former mayor of Cincinnati and the former chair of the Ohio Democrats. He now runs a liberal org he started that is quite popular in the state - although his org has a paid subscription model that I find a little off-putting. Pepper is a smart lawyer and articulates The Liberal Argument very well and he does know Cincinnati so that’s a plus for Team Acton.

As I have written here before, I find Acton very appealing as a candidate and thus am interested in her campaign. She has a genuine warmth that is disarming and a compelling “come from nothing” biography. I think she has a real shot at this IF it’s a very good year for Democrats and the stars align just right.

She’s running a good campaign. She is all over social media (even on Tik Tok!) and she busts ass with constant public appearances where she wades in and shakes hands and talks to people. Vivek Ramaswamy comes from a wealthy family and had an extremely privileged upbringing - top private schools, rich people vacations and neighborhoods and his “own” business that was bankrolled by his parents. Acton draws constant comparisons between the working class Ohio she grew up in and Ramaswamy’s cloistered existence and I think she’s effective at this - she’s a natural populist.

In the meeting I attended Acton and Pepper discussed how they plan to paint Ramaswamy as part of the corrupt status quo in Ohio. They were helped in this by Ramaswamy choosing the state senate president, Rob McColley, as a running mate. I actually know Rob McColley. His mother is a judge and she was on my regular rounds in NW Ohio courts. She’s fine but he’s a horror - far Right, never had a job that wasn’t wingnut welfare, and tightly tied to every Right wing grift and scandal that came out of the statehouse the last ten years (and there have been A LOT of scandals)

The most recent scandal is allegations that Republicans in the legislature engaged in a pay to play scheme that benefitted the owners of the Cleveland Browns, and McColley is in that up to his neck-

Acton and Ramaswamy are currently tied so Vivek has started clumsily “mentioning” that Acton is Jewish the last couple of months. He can’t even dog whistle adroitly.