As part of a discussion about the controversial ad launched by Ohio Republican Vivek Ramaswamy against his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, The Bulwark editor Sam Stein interjected a cautionary note on "Morning Joe."
As pointed out by former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the ad, where Acton’s mother called her sexual assault survivor daughter a “liar,” should end Ramaswamy’s fledgling political career.
According to Stein, years of Donald Trump attacks have altered the calculus.
“I'm going to zag ever so slightly,” he began. “I don't think this is a good ad — I just want to be clear about that. But I'm not totally convinced yet that it won't work because they're going to put four plus million dollars behind it.”
“I don't know what the ecosystem, the news ecosystem, is for Ohio voters,” he admitted. “It's possible that it backfired spectacularly. It's possible that enough people see the ad and they say, ‘Something's weird there.’ I will note this: the backlash that you see is real, but I don't know how far it extends and I'm worried about that.”
“So we looked at [Republican Governor] Mike DeWine denouncing the ad,” he elaborated. “Mike DeWine was also asked if he would pull his endorsement from Ramaswamy, and he said no; he still endorses Vivek Ramaswamy for governor. So there are limitations. And this makes me a little bit scared, right? Because let's say, and again, I don't know if this is going to be true, but let's say it does work. Let's say Vivek Ramaswamy does win. That then sets the template for this type of despicable, gross, immoral type of campaigning. Going forward, everyone's going to take a chapter of that playbook.”
“So this has upped the stakes of the Ohio election in a way that I think is really profound,” he added.