By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
October 23, 2026
At this point in a hotly contested political campaign, some candidates lose whatever vestiges of common sense they possess.
And some demonstrate that they have no moral core at all.
Let’s deal with the question of disappearing common sense first.
Here in Indiana, Republican secretary of state candidate Max Engling has threatened to sue Democrat Beau Bayh over a television ad the Bayh campaign is running.
The TV spot features two Republicans, Indianapolis Deputy Police Chief Scott Robinett and Greg Walker, the outgoing state senator from Columbus, saying that, even though they’ve never voted for a Democrat before, they intend to vote for Bayh.
But that’s not what prompted Engling’s ire.
The spot opens with Robinett saying Engling has been convicted or investigated at least eight times for reckless driving or reckless behavior. Engling says the charge is defamatory on its face.
The record shows that he has eight traffic violations, including one for driving 87 miles per hour in a 60 miles per hour zone. There is no hard-and-fast standard to determine at which point speeding is considered reckless driving, but the general rule of thumb is that racing at more than 20 miles per hour over the speed limit creates the possibility that the more severe charge can be assessed. Engling also has a criminal conviction, since expunged, for throwing eggs at cars from an overpass.
Does this record suggest that the Republican is a hardened lawbreaker, as the Bayh ad implies?
No.
But is the ad so far from the truth that a court is likely to side with Engling?
Again, no.
And that’s what makes me wonder what possessed Engling and his campaign to threaten the suit.
All the Republican candidate has done is focus more attention on an ad that he clearly sees as damaging—all the while encouraging Hoosier voters to deliberate on the question of whether he’s reckless or not.
In short, he shined a spotlight on Bayh’s charges and all but screamed to the entire state, “Hey, look over here!”
It’s hard to see how that’s a winning strategy for Engling.
Bayh took another approach.
When Engling’s campaign unleashed its own attack ad—one that accused the Democrat of voter fraud for casting ballots while attending college or living in Washington, D.C. with his father, former U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana—the younger Bayh let that pitch sail right on by.
That’s the way seasoned candidates respond to tough attacks.
If one’s opponent has said something that is damaging about a candidate, the last thing a smart candidate wants to do is draw more attention to the charge. If an adversary wants to say something uncomplimentary about one’s character or candidacy, let him pay for his own microphone, build his own stage and gather his own crowd.
For goodness’ sake, don’t help him.
Engling’s mistake is an error in judgment, one likely produced by fatigue and frustration.
Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s offense is something much worse.
Ramaswamy’s campaign released an ad on social media that featured the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton. In the spot, the mother says Acton is a “liar.”
What neither the ad nor Ramaswamy bothers to mention is that the mother hasn’t seen Acton since the Democratic candidate was 12. That’s because the courts and child protective services removed Acton and her brother from the mother’s care after determining that their stepfather, the mother’s husband, had been sexually abusing Acton since she was 9.
The mother and the stepfather fled Ohio to avoid punishment.
None of that seems to matter to Ramaswamy, who appears to have thought that he might be able to leverage the crimes inflicted on a defenseless little girl into swinging some low-information voters his way.
It won’t work.
Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, most Americans despise pedophilia—and people who try to profit from it in any way.
That Ramaswamy doesn’t realize that just demonstrates that he is a man without any moral fiber.
As I noted earlier, some candidates as they approach the end of hard-fought and exhausting campaigns, such as Max Engling, do things that are stupid and self-defeating.
But candidates such as Vivek Ramaswamy?
They do things that are downright evil.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College. Also, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
