Can you imagine if during Reagan's campaign someone leaked nude photos of his mother? Or Bush? Do you really think Evangelicals would have gone for that?
Muckraking is not a new phenomenon at all, even to this degree. The "nude photos" of Ann Dunham have been debunked as false. [1]
I speculate you are right, though, that less people these days would give a flip about whether one modeled for a underground fetish publication in the late 1960s, even if true.
Unfortunately, there are still a significant amount of people who would have an issue with this. But to me (and probably others), the claims made say nothing about Ann Dunham (even if they were true). But they say a heck of a lot of negative about the authors of what seems to be the primary source of this muckraking [2].
He openly admitted smoking marijuana in his youth. Bill Clinton weaseled out of it, famously claiming he "didn't inhale" and didn't like it. 16 years later, Obama didn't feel the need to fudge his history in that regard.
