DAVENPORT, Iowa — The Quad-City Times has apologized for a political cartoon published in their June 21 opinion column.
The cartoon depicted Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently visited the Quad Cities on June 16. It shows him giving a public speech - a banner behind him reading 'Quad City Republicans Welcome Anti-Woke Crusader Vivek Ramaswamy.' Only three people are in the audience.
In the illustration, Ramaswamy said "Hello my MAGA friends!" with each audience member saying various controversial lines about the Indian-American candidate. They include "Muslim!" and "Show us your birth certificate!" and "Get me a slushee, Apu!"
"We were all quite taken aback by the nature and tone of the editorial," Vivek 2024 spokesperson Stefan Mychajliw said. "We wholeheartedly understand the boundaries of the First Amendment, a newspaper can print anything they want — but it did cross the line when it comes to the issues of race and religion."
When asked if the comic could be interpreted as criticizing Republican voters for saying similar things about former President Barack Obama, Mychajliw said any doubts about Ramaswamy's validity as a U.S. citizen are out of the question.
"He wholeheartedly supports legal immigration," Mychajliw said. "He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and is an American citizen - he's eligible for the presidency. That being said, questioning his birth certificate is out of bounds."
Mychajliw added that the characterization of Quad Cities Republican voters is inaccurate.
"I can tell you with one 100% certainty we have never, ever seen this type of offensive hatred from anyone on the campaign trail, whether they're Republican, conservative, Democrat, Independent, regardless of your political stripe," he said.
This is despite Vivek's initial reaction to the cartoon on Twitter, where he said in part, "I've...never once experienced the kind of bigotry that I regularly see from the Left."
Iowa Senator Scott Webster (R - District 47) said he was more concerned with those in the community of Indian heritage.
"That was the most worrisome part of it to me, is what their reaction would be and how they would feel with somebody being called that — and making sure they knew none of that was said at any events Vivek came to," Sen. Webster said.
Scott County Democrats chair Kay Pence said she was disappointed with Ramaswamy's aforementioned Twitter comment on the Left, but thinks that national media attention on the cartoon has blown things out of proportion. Pence wants everyone to focus more on candidate policies.
"I think people are just getting tired of the name-calling," Pence said. "We'd rather hear what a candidate's plan is versus personal attacks."
The Quad-Cities Times published an apology in their June 24 paper.
Executive editor Tom Martin said "the cartoon, while intended to criticize racist ideas and epithets, uses a phrase that is insensitive to members of our Indian American community," adding that the cartoon would be pulled from their website and digital publications. They also said they would not accept further work from the cartoonist.
Ramaswamy accepted the apology and the paper published his response in the same edition. He also responded on Twitter saying, "I’m a former aspiring standup comic and I’ll always forgive a bad joke."
"The last thing he wants to do is see this cartoon [get] the newspaper canceled or this cartoonist fired or punished," Mychajliw said. "The newspaper very graciously offered an apology. Vivek accepted it and now it's time to move on."