I was there. That’s why I’d like to provide some context missing from Ray Marcano’s recent column, “Ramaswamy will be haunted by ‘winners or whiners’ deplorables-like speech.”
Marcano states that Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy “got booed off the stage.” There were certainly some boos from the college-aged libertarian audience. However, by my estimate, the boos came from a fifth of the crowd or less, and the speech concluded as planned. Ramaswamy didn’t run off as if the hook was coming from stage left.
A more accurate account is that a minority of the room booed Ramaswamy from the outset, and an even smaller number heckled him before he even began to speak. Ramaswamy could have read from the Declaration of Independence, and the instigators would have continued to yell out slogans about Israel, AI stealing jobs and (phrased politely) Ramaswamy not being American enough for their liking.
I’ll chalk it up to the 8 p.m. start time and the open bar. Twenty-one-year-olds have done far worse after a few sodas.
What was actually said
Moreover, Marcano centers his piece around a misquote, alleging that Ramaswamy taunted the audience of college students by saying, “people in my generation have made it.” Rather, Ramaswamy, speaking with respect to the threat of the spread of socialism, plainly stated that “people of my generation who have already made it, we are going to be fine; it’s going to be your generation that pays the price.” Whatever readers think of Ramaswamy’s politics, his remarks should be evaluated based on what he actually said − not on an inaccurate paraphrase. The full video is online.
In the face of this crowd, Ramaswamy began the speech by stating, “If you care about somebody, you tell them the truth; if you care about yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” That’s called leadership. Confronting and discussing people’s varying points of view is the type of action that can push Ohio to new heights.
Cory Ingle lives in North Avondale.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ramaswamy’s ‘winners or whiners’ speech deserves better context | Opinion
Reporting by Cory Ingle, Opinion contributor / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Cory Ingle, Opinion contributor | USA TODAY Network
