I’ve heard people say that the Ramaswamy team must have been scared.

Last week, the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech billionaire and onetime Republican presidential candidate who is currently the Republican nominee to be the governor of Ohio, ran an ad featuring the long-estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, the physician and former public health official Amy Acton.

In the clip, Acton’s aging mother emphasizes that her daughter is dishonest. She refers to what she calls a pattern of lying. She urges Ohioans to not vote for her daughter.

The clip was meant to leave a dramatic impression on voters with the drama of its severed family bond: how dramatic must Acton’s dishonesty be, viewers were supposed to wonder, if even her own mother is disturbed by it? Left unsaid in the ad is why Acton and her mother are estranged, or much of what Acton’s mother believes she lies about.

According to both of them, Acton and her mother have not spoken in nearly 50 years, since they last saw each other in court. Acton’s mother was there to support her husband on charges of raping and sexually abusing the child Acton from the ages of nine to 12. Shortly after their final meeting, the man was released on bond; he and Acton’s mother fled the state; he evaded justice, and remained married to Acton’s mother, until his death in 2004.

When the old woman says that her daughter was a liar, this is what she apparently means: she is accusing her of lying about sexual abuse, and siding with her dead husband, the alleged abuser.

Analysts........

© The Guardian