Politics and ideology aside, what does it say about someone’s judgment and management style, to leap out attacking someone without doing your homework?
Great funny example was that clownish Senator from Missouri who wanted to suggest that Jack Smith had been in Atlanta conspiring against Donald Trump. Accused him of perjury, put up a big poster of staff texts and asked pompously if Smith had been in Atlanta on a certain date, attending the Golden State Warriors basketball game there. The poster was supposed to show Smith was lying. That stuff can really be fun, when it works. In a former life I did just that, many times, in trials.
But Senator Witless and his staff hadn’t looked very closely at their evidence. Smith was confused, then said he went to a University of Maryland women’s basketball game, to get a look at Iowa Hawkeye star Caitlin Clark. Not in Atlanta. Hawkeyes, not Hawks. Women’s college basketball, of which Senator Witless was likely ignorant. Not the NBA.
An Ohio gubernatorial candidate just topped that, in an uglier way.
I mean, for openers, if a woman is saying she was molested in childhood, you want to think extra hard before challenging that. Obviously.
So the desperate Mr. Ramaswamy, trying to be governor, cuts an ad with the woman’s mother, saying the woman lied. Okay. Since the facts show the mother hasn’t seen the daughter since the daughter, at 12, was removed from the mother’s custody because her stepfather had raped her, how would the mother know if she’s a lawyer. Was there rape? The daughter was removed from the house. The father was indicted for raping her. He went on the lam, leaving the state and hiding. So, you do the math. The brother supports his sister’s account. The mother stayed with that jerk ‘til he died. Whom should we believe.
Arguing with a woman about her being raped as a child is a bad look.
Arguing when such a damning public record supports her story is so stupid and ugly that I wouldn’t want that fellow running my state, even if I loved all his policy positions.
Even Republicans find it distasteful and/or see it can harm everyone in the party. Sensible of them. The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate said he wouldn’t have run that ad. Others point out that drawing attention to that episode could arose interest in Ms. Acton and empathy for what she suffered. But converted Trumpist J.D. Vance, maybe because his boss has convinced him that sex with underage girls is no big thing, calls those Republicans wimps. That’ll play real well with women if/when Mr. Vance again runs for elective office.
It’s also just vile. Glad Ramaswamy isn’t trying to govern New Mexico! Hope we never see Vance in a position of power ever again.
Hours after I posted that, Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, called on Mr. Ramaswamy to take down the ad. Iowa's Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate has called it "absolutely terrible."
Then (speaking of vile and stupid) Mr. Trump weighed in, insulting not only the Democratic candidate but also Governor DeWine. To him, the repulsive ad "hit paydirt." The idea that women, particularly, will find that a male jerk pooh-poohing claims of sexual molestation is NOT a credit to him, doesn't resonate with Mr. Trump. If you can insult someone, do. He's still the wonderful pupil of Roy Cohn he was in his youth.
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