Caffeinated Politics

I’ll keep this column short tonight, not because it doesn’t merit a full blast of energy, but because I didn’t intend to write twice today. But over the past 72 hours, I have grown more incensed by the news from Ohio and the reckless, perverse joy Republican Vivek Ramaswamy feels as he pushes his closing argument for election as governor. He is actually stating that Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton, his opponent in the Ohio governor’s race, has lied about the well-documented childhood rape she experienced for political gain.

The tenor of the ad, which features her decades-long estranged mother, whose 12-year-old daughter was raped by her husband while in her custody, turns the stomach of the nation. Today, current GOP Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine denounced the ad.

I started following politics with interest in 1976, and that habit grew steadily over the decades. I have also read history throughout my life. So, when I say that I have never witnessed anything like this reprehensible political travesty, I mean it. When a young girl is raped by her stepfather, and that is now fodder for partisan politics, you can find me at the vomitorium.

I see campaigns about punching up, not down. Turning childhood rape into a political weapon is so astonishingly cruel that I am not sure how to construct the rest of this sentence. I find it hard to find words in this column that match my complete bafflement that this was ever considered an option in the light of day. Even from Ramaswamy, who has always been a nasty little bottom-feeder in politics. Any candidate willing to exploit another person’s childhood rape trauma has crossed a line that cannot be undone.

I often write that this person or that campaign has dug a new low basement in politics. This week, Vivek Ramaswamy brought his shovel and kept digging.

Long-time readers of Caffeianted Politics know I make predictions for election season, and this year will be no different. For the past month, I had Acton winning. The GOP candidate is underwater, with favorable ratings so low they are not politically survivable, and that was before this unconscionable behavior.