What Is Amy Acton Hiding From Ohio Voters?
With today’s highly scripted political campaigns, it’s harder than ever to know what candidates really think about issues. Add the inevitable bias in most reporting and commentary and it’s all but impossible to discern truth from spin.
Candidate debates, while imperfect, offer at least some opportunity to force those seeking our votes to go toe to toe with their opponents, under pressure, without handlers or teleprompters. Dr. Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democrat candidate for governor, has denied Ohioans that opportunity. Vivek Ramaswamy, her Republican counterpart, has eagerly accepted the challenge.
Most candidates see the decision whether to debate — or not — as a question of risk vs. benefit. Campaign advisors worry about exposing their candidate to unscripted moments and questions they’d rather not answer. They seek to avoid high-profile exchanges with an opponent who may get a boost in support from a well-turned response or witty and memorable criticism. Acton appears to have weighed these concerns and identified more risk.
Polling suggests Acton and Ramaswamy are in a statistical dead heat. Both candidates have expressed their preferred policy positions, but doing so on their websites and in curated events doesn’t subject those positions to face-to-face challenges like a debate can.
Last week, a man at a local fair pushed through a crowd with his phone up to ask Acton questions, knocking over some people and was then arrested. The man was legally armed but his weapons were never brandished. That’s not how we should be getting information from our political candidates. Because her campaign had prohibited video of the event, they were able to spin it as an attack on her. Subsequent comments from the prosecutor completely undercut that spin.
Prior to that incident, Acton had been the subject of intense social media scrutiny for what commentators claimed was an intoxicated rant. No evidence was provided beyond video. The kerfuffle at the fair completely took that event out of play.
Acton shouts “You can’t buy Ohio, and you can’t buy us” while complaining that Ramaswamy has spent millions on advertising questioning her fitness for office. Isn’t a debate stage with a statewide audience the perfect place to offer her evidence and refute her opponent’s criticisms?
There’s another question a debate would force, and it’s one she has never had to face in an unscripted setting.
Acton professes a personal connection to the Jewish tradition of Tikkun Olam — to improve the world. She’s never been pressed about what she thinks that obligation requires. She would be Ohio’s first Jewish governor and she’s running on behalf of a political party that’s become far too comfortable with antisemitism.
Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed — from that state up north — eagerly campaigned alongside the notorious Hasan Piker, who has built an audience on Jew hatred and the destruction of Israel.
Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Attorney General, interpreted Tikkun Olam to mean that Jews should “…sacrifice the comfort, safety, and security, and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.” Since Nessel’s framing is a perversion of our noble tradition, and dead Jews can’t repair anything, I’m sure many Ohio Jews would like to know if Acton agrees with her fellow Democrat.
She hasn’t answered any of it. She’s arranged not to have to.
Acton’s refusal to debate may well be shielding what’s really happening and it could be a replay of what just happened in Virginia.
Governor Abigail Spanberger campaigned across that state last year as a former CIA officer who put pragmatism ahead of party and talked mostly about grocery bills and the cost of living. She won and promptly signed a litany of progressive wish-list items that increased the cost of doing business, banned some guns, and barred state police from helping to enforce federal immigration laws.
The moderate Spanberger lasted until the votes were counted. The far-left Spanberger entered the scene soon after Inauguration Day.
Is Acton running the same sort of campaign? Absent answers to tough questions, voters would be wise to expect the same “stage-left” act that Spanberger performed.
In her last government job, Acton’s authoritarian orders closed Ohio’s schools first in the nation and shut down our state. Then she quit when citizens had the temerity to complain. After that resignation, she took positions with two non-profits, Kind Columbus and Rapid 5, where she accomplished little beyond fundraising then promptly quit those jobs too.
Her platform includes typical far-left views on abortion and welfare. Her running mate, David Pepper, is an aggressively partisan progressive who previously ran the Ohio Democratic Party.
He previously said that a candidate who refuses to debate is “showing contempt for voters and civic groups.”
I don’t agree with much of what Pepper believes, but he’s right about that. It’s not debatable. We deserve to see her answer questions under pressure before deciding whether to hire her, assuming she’ll stick around...