There are attack ads, and then there are attack ads. The latter has been running in Ohio.

The ad circulated over the weekend without attribution, but it features Donna Arthur, the mother of Democrat gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. It is a shocking and devastating takedown.

In the ad, Arthur says:

I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent — it’s not easy for a mother to say this. But Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true.

My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn’t doing that. Don’t vote for people who lie. Don’t let her become your governor. If you think she’ll make your life better, you’re fooling yourself. It will only get worse.

Game, set, match, right?

Not exactly.

After the ad sparked fierce controversy, Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy claimed responsibility and plans to spend $4 million on the ad campaign. “It is an ad from our campaign, and the thing that I want to say is that I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans, and unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues,” Ramaswamy told reporters. “She won’t debate me.”

Ramaswamy would absolutely be a better governor for Ohio than Acton, but this ad does not focus at all on “the substantive issues that impact Ohioans.”

Worse, it may be incredibly misleading.

Acton’s campaign responded with a video featuring her brother, Philip Stearns, who harshly criticized their “estranged and abusive mother” for remaining married to a stepfather they claim sexually abused Acton as a child. “I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Stearns said in the ad. “To think that that’s somehow a talking point, shame on Vivek. It’s the contempt he has for Amy. It’s the contempt he has for Ohio. He’s not fit to lead.”

That is also an effective ad.

Stearns added in a statement, “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”

Even good families can be messy, and Acton’s family seems like an utter disaster. To put it mildly, it’s poor taste to trash your political opponent based on her family troubles when her family was so thoroughly broken — even more so when there are credible allegations that she was sexually abused as a child.

Credible? Well, Cledith Arthur was arrested, charged, and indicted for abusing Acton, but he was later released on bond and fled. Despite warrants for his arrest, he and Donna moved to Pennsylvania, where he died in 2004. Acton and her brother were removed from the Arthurs’ custody. Those are matters of legal record.

Moreover, in her 1994 Ohio medical licensure application, Acton disclosed that she had sought therapy for childhood sexual abuse. Her story has remained consistent. She says she has not had contact with her mother since court proceedings in 1978.

That said, “believe all women” is a horrible farce emanating from the overzealous MeToo movement. Acton could be lying about this and many other things. Indeed, political candidates lie about their own biographies. To gain an advantage in her career in academia, Elizabeth Warren perpetuated the fiction that she had Native American ancestry. She didn’t let go of the fiction until her political opponents cornered her on the facts.

Joe Biden and his crew managed to convince 81 million* voters that he was competent to serve as president. We all suffered for four years because that was a tremendous lie.

And don’t forget that Ilhan Omar is currently under investigation for immigration fraud.

That said, based on available evidence, it doesn’t seem like Acton is lying.

Anything is fair in love, war, and politics. In Ohio, Amy Acton would make a horrible governor, and Ramaswamy is well within his rights to make that case. Yet he’s essentially attacking her for things that were entirely outside her control as a child. She was stuck with an allegedly cruel mother and a criminally abusive stepfather. To ground an attack in those things is unquestionably below the belt.

If Ramaswamy truly wants to focus on “the substantive issues that impact Ohioans,” he should tell voters why the policies Acton favors would harm them — because they would. Every Republican should be focused on telling voters why Democratic Socialism will destroy American Liberty.

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