Donna Arthur, the mother of Amy Acton, a Democrat running to become Ohio’s next governor, appears in a campaign ad urging voters not to vote for her own daughter.
You read that correctly: a candidate’s own mother is publicly opposing her own child’s gubernatorial run, and doing so in the bluntest of terms.
“I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent — and it’s not easy for a mother to say this — but Amy has a serious problem,” Ms. Arthur explains. Then comes this: “She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life.”
“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,” she adds, and then closes with this…
“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.”
Yikes.
Sounds like a complicated relationship.
If you enjoy awkwardness, Thanksgiving dinner at the Acton household just became the hottest ticket in town.
Through a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, Acton has already posted a response on her campaign website. It tries to lay the blame on Acton’s opponent, Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy:
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” said Philip Stearns, Dr. Acton’s brother. “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. This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.” [emphasis original]
We’ve seen opportunistic, ungrateful, spoiled children come out against their parents. Patti Davis made a career out of betraying her father, Ronald Reagan, as did Ron Reagan Jr. We’ve also seen siblings come out against siblings. But neither I (nor AI) could come up with an example like this one — of a parent not only refusing to support their own child but actively campaigning against them.
But as you will read below, Acton’s mother might have a point… Might.
Currently, in the RealClearPolitcs poll of polls, Ramaswamy is down by an average of 3.7 points to Acton, 48.2 to 44.5 percent.
As of now, there is no information about who paid for the ad, or who backed it. Mom appears to be responding to a 2019 interview Acton gave describing her mother in the worst possible ways:
At one point in childhood, they moved to California. Mom got into a fight with whoever was the man at that time. So they traveled back home. They got as far as Nebraska. Mom got a job to earn money; she met a guy; she put her kids — age 8 and 5 — on a bus alone back to here to live with relatives. Three months later, mom, too, was home, and the cycle continued.
Acton then claims her mother married a man who molested her. Acton said criminal charges were filed against her stepfather and that things were so bad the family was living in a tent that winter outside of Youngstown, Ohio.
Here’s where things get dicey…
Acton, who was 12 at the time, now claims that the last time she saw her mother was when her mother and stepfather were hit with criminal charges.
“In the courthouse after they were charged, I went to give her a kiss, and she just turned her cheek away. That was the last time I ever saw her,” Acton said.
Acton then told the interviewer that her mother and stepfather skipped bond.
Okay, so…
If criminal charges were indeed filed against Acton’s mother and stepfather, and if the two of them indeed skipped bond, there should be a record of this. As of now, though, according to one source, “A search of Mahoning County court cases shows there is no record of any criminal charges ever having been filed against Donna or her husband in Mahoning County.”
Methinks that is where this is going… Either Amy Acton told the truth about this terrible event, or she invented it to boost her public status as a sexual assault victim. After all, this alleged assault and her troubled childhood are central to Acton’s campaign biography.
Bottom line: What her brother says does not matter. The documentation backing up Acton’s claim is either there, or it isn’t, and if it isn’t…
