Political campaign attacks coincide with the earliest elections in American history. In the election of 1800, when founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams squared off to succeed George Washington, the campaign apparatuses of the Federalists (Adams) and the Democratic-Republicans (Jefferson) leveled despicable charges against the nominees. Adams’ supporters claimed Jefferson would oversee a French Revolution-style regime complete with guillotines and hostility toward religion. Jefferson’s supporters charged that Adams preferred a king and would return America to British-style tyranny. Neither claim was true.
Disparaging one’s opponent is an American pastime. Voters consistently claim to be turned off by political attack ads, yet there are many examples of a deftly produced ad changing the course of an election.
One of the most devastating negative campaign ads in history never mentioned the opponent by name and only aired one time. “Peace, Little Girl,” aka “Daisy,” was created for Lyndon Johnson’s campaign against Barry Goldwater. Johnson intended to leverage anxiety about the potential for nuclear war and paint Goldwater as dangerous and lacking restraint.
The ad depicted a little girl plucking the petals off a daisy as she counts. Her counting is interrupted by a mission control-style countdown that ends with a mushroom cloud enveloping the screen. Johnson says,
“These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.”
The ad rattled the American psyche immediately and was taken off the air, but the publicity resulted in the ad being shown and described countless times. Some estimate it was seen by more than 100 million people. Johnson won the presidency in a landslide with 61% of the popular vote.
Sixty-two years later, another attack ad is consuming news reports and social media feeds for its brashness, salaciousness, and devastating lack of humanity. The “estranged mother” ad produced for Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy attacks Democratic nominee Amy Acton, who is leading the contest according to most polls. The ad features Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, calling Acton a liar and saying she is “troubled.” It ends with Arthur telling voters that things will only get worse if they elect her daughter.
On its face, the ad is harsh. Being repudiated by one’s mother is a crushing message. However, what renders the ad disgraceful is its context. Arthur lost custody of Acton and her brother in 1978 when her husband, Cledith Arthur, was indicted by a grand jury for raping Acton. Acton was 12 years old at the time of the indictment. Records show the family lived in a tent in a nearby campground and often lacked food and necessities. The record also reveals that Arthur knew about the sexual assault, but stood by her husband, Acton’s stepfather. In response to the attack, Acton’s brother appeared in a campaign ad corroborating her story and disputing their mother’s accusations.
Predictably, no prominent Republican Party leader (Nikki Haley and Nancy Mace don’t count), other than Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, called for Ramaswamy to take the ad down. In fact, Vice President J.D. Vance admonished Republicans at a rally to “stop whining” about it. President Trump posted on Truth Social urging Ramaswamy to continue airing the ad, calling it “pay dirt.”
For those who might desire to suggest that despite Acton’s childhood trauma, her mother could be correct, you should carefully consider the source. Besides remaining married to Acton’s rapist until he passed in 2004, the couple fled the state of Ohio after Cledith Arthur’s indictment. In 1996, Donna Arthur was sentenced to two years in prison for – wait for it – felony theft by DECEPTION. Then in 2021, Arthur was convicted of animal neglect when multiple cats and kittens were locked inside a hot vehicle, resulting in the death of some of the animals. A pattern, perhaps?
Ramaswamy and his advisors knew the circumstances surrounding Acton’s estrangement from her mother. Any consultant at that level who is worth their salt vetted Donna Arthur before putting her on camera. Ramaswamy and his team made a conscious decision to weaponize Acton’s family tragedy, regardless of the pain and anguish it would cause to Acton, her family, and other survivors of sexual abuse. It is a move that would make even Machiavelli blush.
Whether an attack like this, which is easily the worst I have witnessed in 30 years in campaigns and politics, is legitimized will depend solely on the response of Ohio voters. If Ramaswamy is rewarded by winning the Governor’s race, then any crumb of decency that may exist in politics will have been swept away. Voters who are troubled by the ad but justify their vote for Ramaswamy out of fear of Acton’s progressivism should remember what he has revealed. There is nothing he won’t do to obtain and maintain power, including mocking a victim of child rape.