Dale Butland was press secretary and Ohio chief of staff to the late Sen. John Glenn. His memoir, "When Ohio Was Blue,"was published in April.
I’ve been involved in Ohio politics for nearly 50 years. Twenty of them were spent working for the late U.S. Sen. John Glenn. Because I’ve held senior positions in 12 statewide campaigns – including six for the U.S. Senate – I know firsthand that politics, as the political humoristFinley Peter Dunnesaid first put it in 1895,“ain’t beanbag.”
But no matter how contentious political races get, there are some lines that should never be crossed.
In the past few days, Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy not only crossed those lines, he completely obliterated them with an attack ad using his Democratic
opponent's estranged mother that was so vileand reprehensible that even Ohio’s outgoing GOP governor, Mike DeWine (who previously endorsed Ramaswamy), called it “wrong,” “deeply disturbing” and said it should “be taken down.”
I want to focus on why the ad will prove to be a political boomerang instead of Acton's mother, who, asMike Curtin, a former Dispatch editor and Ohio lawmaker, explained in a Oct. 23 guest column, fled the state with her husband, who was charged with raping Acton when she was 12.
Why did Ramaswamy chose to air the ad in the first place?
The “why” is easy.
Despite spending over$120 million to defeat her, Ramaswamy and his allies were doubtlessly frustrated by the small but persistent lead Dr. Amy Acton has held in most public polls and, I suspect, in the Ramaswamy campaign’s internal polling as well.
With time running out, Ramaswamy decided to roll the dice with a brutal, jaw-dropping attack ad that reeks of desperation.
There are two reasons I believe it will boomerang against him.
First, Ramaswamy’s Achilles’ heel has always been his “favorability” ratings.
Whether it’s because he’s a fast-talking billionaire who often comes across as arrogant and condescending, the tsunami of negative TV ads he’s already aired or some combination thereof, polls have consistently shown that voters don’t like him very much. A despicable ad that puts him on the side of his opponent’s rapist will only make that problem worse.
What will be the fallout of Ramawamy's ad using Acton's estranged mother?
Second, history tells us how voters are likely to respond at the ballot box.
In 1988, I was “on loan” from Sen. Glenn to Ohio’s other U.S. senator at the time, Howard Metzenbaum,who was running for re-election and opposed by then-ClevelandMayor George Voinovich.
Polls showed Metzenbaum, like Acton, held a modest but steady lead – and when Labor Day arrived, the Voinovich campaign, too, felt the need to shake things up. So they enlisted a “concerned Ohio mother” (who, in reality, turned out to be a relative of one of his campaign operatives) to look into a camera lens and declare: “He votes against laws to put child pornographers out of business. I want to put Howard Metzenbaum out of business.”
Today, of course, voters have become inured to far more vicious political attacks. But in 1988, the Voinovich ad was shocking, not only because of the subject matter but also because voters had not yet become comfortable with that level of personal assault.
I won’t go into all the details, except to say that Voinovich, like Ramaswamy, decided to double down on his disgusting accusation. But the end result was that newspaper editorial boards, TV commentators and, ultimately, Ohio voters rendered a decisive verdict: Voinovich had badly overstepped with an ugly smear that was wholly unjustified. And on Election Day, what had been a close race became a 14-point Metzenbaum landslide.
Mark Twain is said to have observed that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Which is why I believe Amy Acton will be Ohio’s next governor.
Dale Butland was press secretary and Ohio chief of staff to the late Sen. John Glenn. His memoir, "When Ohio Was Blue," was published in April.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: I've seen this before. Vile ad will be boomerang that hits Ramaswamy where it hurts | Opinion
