Ohio entrepreneur and anti-woke crusader Vivek Ramaswamy is launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, according to his campaign.
The spot, titled “Identity Crisis,” is about to roll out in the opening caucus and primary states.
“I’m Vivek Ramaswamy. I’m a successful entrepreneur and I’m running for president of the United States,” the 37-year-old political outsider says in the 30-second campaign ad.
Ramaswamy, the youngest candidate in the increasingly crowded field of presumptive and declared contestants for the GOP nomination, drives home the key theme of his campaign: that America is in need of an identity revival amid the din of the culture wars.
“We’re in the middle of a national identity crisis. Faith, patriotism and hard work have disappeared. Wokeness, gender ideology and the climate cult have taken their place,” he says, images of church pews, the Stars and Stripes, and full warehouse shelves fade to photos of a Critical Race Theory classroom, trans male swimmer Lia Thomas and climate change zealot Greta Thunberg.
“We spend so much time celebrating our diversity that we forget the values that bind us together,” Ramaswamy says. “And I believe deep in my bones that those values still exist.”
A new poll by the Wall Street Journal finds an alarmingly low percentage of Americans value patriotism and traditional American values.
As reported by Fox News, the WSJ/NORC poll showed that just 38 percent of respondents believe in the “importance of patriotism.” In the same poll in 1998, that number stood at 70 percent.
In the month-plus since Ramaswamy launched his bid for the White House, the businessman has spent a lot of time in the kickoff GOP presidential nomination states. He was in the Hawkeye State last weekend, meeting with western Iowans during a three-day, three-county swing.
Ramaswamy is considered by pundits to be a long-shot candidate, up against Republican heavy hitters like former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to announce his campaign in the coming months. But the best-selling author of books like “Woke Inc.” and “Nation of Victims” is positioning himself as a fresh conservative voice preaching American exceptionalism to a nation wounded by wokeism.
Ramaswamy’s big and early ad buy in pivotal opening nominating states and his plan to be in Iowa and New Hampshire early and often could go a long way toward building up his profile with voters there.
“The subtext of such a significant ad buy is that the Ramaswamy campaign is for real,” RealClear Politics’ Philip Wegmann wrote.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Vivek Ramaswamy” by Vivek Ramaswamy.
