Michael McGovern

“Team Vivek” slate card paid for by Strongsville GOP club, which Ramaswamy is addressing this morning on an Ohio Republican Party bus tour. Rep. Max Miller made the cut.

.@VivekGRamaswamy campaign responds:

Happening now - The Ohio Organizing Collaborative is holding a rally at the Ohio Statehouse to urge Gov Mike DeWine to veto a bill that makes changed to the mail-in voting process

Opinion: Ohio Republicans backed policies that helped data centers expand. Now they’re fearing the consequences. dispatch.com/story/opinion/c…

This is obviously 100% fake, originally fabricated by a leftist blogger with mental health issues. On one hand, I really didn’t want to respond because it’s so dumb. On the other hand, it’s Exhibit A of how toxic politics works & it happens often enough that I feel some obligation to lift the curtain on how the game is played. So here goes: I’m a Cavs fan. Love going to their games, always have, I’ve been going for decades. My wife and I bought courtside tickets for Game 4 against the Knicks, and our team got smoked. It was brutal. The two of us watched the game, face in hands, in disbelief and dejection during the second half, then peaced out right after the buzzer straight to our car (accompanied by state-provided security the entire time). No, we did not stick around to watch the Knicks celebrate their romping. There is literally no amount of money on Earth you could have paid me to sit around and watch them collect their Eastern Conference trophy, let alone watch them parade off the court to their locker room. A sharp poke in the eye would’ve been more pleasant. But then, a left-wing Ohio blogger with mental health issues publishes that not only did I wait until after the ceremony, but that I lingered around & tried to enter the Knicks’ locker room after the game, and told them I wanted “welcome” them to Ohio. This is nuts! He also published other vivid details. Those were also 100% nuts. But here’s how the game is played. Ohio Democrats then repeatedly boosted the so-called “story” on social media, and the Daily Beast & others write “news” stories about it. Then hundreds of others cite the Daily Beast’s reporting and literally turn their fantasy into “truth." It’s worth observing the incentive that political opponents would have to fabricate an anonymous “tip” to a random blogger with mental issues who has absolutely no standards for publication, then to amplify the “stories” after they’re written. The whole thing is dumb, to be clear. But it’s dirty, it happens repeatedly, and the public is better off knowing about it. It’s why sane people rarely go into politics. Anyone who does should probably have their own head checked out (including me). My team sensibly told me to not to dignify it by commenting on it. Politically, they’re probably right. But if every leader were to follow that advice, it rewards the incentives for bad actors to lie not just about me, but about others in the future too. Call me idealistic, but I don’t think that’s how things are supposed to work.