I checked back into the Ohio governor’s race only to find this latest low-down tactic from Vivek Ramaswamy:
A video circulated Tuesday shows a woman who identifies herself as Amy Acton’s mother urging Ohioans not to elect the Democratic candidate for governor.
"My name is Donna Arthur, and I’m Amy Acton’s mother," the speaker says at the start of the minute-long recording.
Amy Acton had a difficult childhood, which no one disputes. Her parents divorced when she was very young, her mother remarried, and Acton and her mother then followed Acton’s mother’s new petty criminal spouse from town to town, with little Amy attending 18 different schools between kindergarten and 7th grade, when Amy reported that she had been sexually abused by the stepfather. Acton’s mother denied the allegations and the abuse case was resolved by a change in custody. Amy moved in with her father, where she remained until she left for college.
Acton has been estranged from her mother for the last 50 years. Acton recounts how for one brief period during the time with her mother she and her mother lived in a tent at a campground. I have heard her story myself, it was very clear Acton was describing a brief tenancy in the tent.
In the ad Donna Arthur begins with the tent story, where she says “Amy says we lived in a tent, which is a lie”. Okay, well no one said they “lived in a tent”, which of course implies “every day”. Amy makes it clear this campground stay was them hitting bottom, briefly. Arthur then goes on to say Amy is a serial liar with mental health problems.
I practiced law in four rural counties and in the most rural county I was often in front of a judge I just loved. Judge Tiffany, (or “Tiff” if you knew her well). Judge Tiffany had a difficult childhood, raised by Christian fundamentalists who tried to marry her off at 17. She got away, put herself thru college and law school and became a judge – smart and tough with a great sense of humor. I was once in her chambers with an assistant prosecutor who wanted to bring in my client’s mother to attack my client’s character, to which I objected. Judge Tiffany listened to both of us and then decided to disallow the nasty mother v daughter testimony. She said to the prosecutor “not everyone gets along with their mother. I didn’t like my mother. Call her up right now and she’ll tell you how bad I am. It doesn’t mean anything for our purposes”.
I don’t know what happened in Acton’s abuse case, but since the single biggest risk factor for child abuse is a stepparent in the home and everyone agrees stepdad was a chronically unemployed loser who moved the family constantly to stay ahead of local law enforcement and debt collectors, I don’t think it’s a crazy allegation.
I’m pulling for Amy but I do worry that this ad will resonate with people who are estranged from their adult children and - this is anecdotal! – many of those people are Right wing or Right leaning. Too, parental estrangement has become a bit of a rallying issue on the Right:
At a Florida campaign event last week, Republican Rep. Byron Donalds was confronted by a weeping grandmother who asked him to intervene so she could get access to her grandson.
The woman said she hadn’t seen the child since Aug. 7 — not quite a two-month span — and begged Donalds, who’s running to become the Sunshine State’s next governor, to uphold “grandparents’ rights” if he wins.The video went viral, driven in part by the sad trend of family estrangement, often over political disagreements. In the last decade or so, more and more adults seem to be cutting off their parents, “going no contact” on the advice of therapists, friends or social-media kibitzers.
Acton’s polling v Ramaswamy is not that good. It’s close but she’s mostly one or two points behind and in my experience in Ohio that means a loss. As I have written here before I do not agree with the take that says “Ohio won’t vote for the brown Hindu”. I think this is one of those self-congratulatory, cherished myths on our side that is more about us telling ourselves how tolerant and open minded we are than anything real. I bet Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley agree with me.
Still, I hope she can pull it out because Republicans are apparently watching Ohio as a bellweather. They think if they lose in Ohio it will be a VERY bad night. Agree!
