The rhetorical tactics of Cicero's speeches demonstrate how an initial charge of "ambitus", under whatever statute, might devolve into an occasion for impugning or humiliating a public figure. Popularist politicians were particularly vulnerable to charges of currying favor with the masses, and "ambitus" might be alleged when a man of lower social rank defeated his superior in an election: "The defeat of a candidate boasting "nobilitas" by another not in possession of such standing appears to have been sufficient grounds for initiating a charge of "ambitus"."