Gov. Andy Beshear’s big audition didn’t get him a new role, but the continuing tryouts of people who might succeed him or seek other statewide office began a new round.
Republican hopefuls were on stage before and during the political speaking at the annual Fancy Farm Picnic, which Beshear skipped — apparently because he was on call to Vice President Kamala Harris as she chose a running mate for the job she now holds.
Beshear didn’t make the Democratic ticket, but seemed in the hunt until Saturday, when sources told The New York Times that he could be a “compromise candidate” who would please both centrists like himself and progressives who objected to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s comments about pro-Palestinian protesters.
In his auditions — TV interviews and appearances at fund-raisers and a Harris event in Georgia — Beshear kept attacking the Appalachian bona fides of Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who has family ties to Breathitt County.
Beshear wasn’t a one-trick pony, also talking about abortion — an issue that helped him get re-elected last year, in a sea change for Democrats following the Supreme Court’s repeal of federal abortion rights. And his unspoken message was that he was a moderate Democrat who could win over rural voters, who have largely abandoned the Democratic Party in the last 40 years.
But Harris’s choice, two-term Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has a rural background. He grew up on a Nebraska farm, taught high school and coached football in Mankato, Minn., a town of 45,000, then represented it in Congress. Perhaps more importantly, Minnesota borders two swing states: Michigan (in Lake Superior) and Wisconsin.
Beshear wouldn’t have delivered Kentucky’s electoral votes, and has to be careful about attacking Trump, who remains popular in Kentucky, for fear of blowback from constituents. Walz has no such worries. Speaking of Trump and Vance two days after President Biden dropped out, he delivered the most memorable line of the auditions: “These guys are just weird. They’re running for he-man women-haters club or something.”
Walz’s pithy sense of humor probably made the difference for Harris, said former 3rd District Rep. John Yarmuth, the Kentuckian who knows him and Beshear best.
Beshear did well in his auditions, though he used Trump’s mispronunciation of Harris’s first name in speaking with Georgia reporters. He leaves the process with his national stock boosted and his Kentucky stock probably undamaged. The auditions “put him in a totally different category of national politicians,” Yarmuth said.
If Harris wins and runs for re-election in 2028, Beshear will have a choice: try to maintain himself nationally without an office, or run for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by three-term Republican Rand Paul, who seems to have his own Trump-like following in Kentucky. But Paul hasn’t endorsed Trump and has been making noises about running for president in 2028. When he did that in 2016, Republicans used a caucus system to let him run for the Senate at the same time, but they seem unlikely to do that again, because other Republicans would like to be senator.
In 2026 and 2027, respectively, Kentucky will elect a senator to succeed Republican Mitch McConnell, who seems certain to retire; and a governor to succeed Beshear, who is term-limited. Several Republican prospects for those jobs auditioned before and during the Fancy Farm Picnic.
At the Graves County Republican Party breakfast, 1st District U.S. Rep. James Comer, who narrowly lost the 2015 gubernatorial primary and still wants to be governor, took aim at a possible opponent — Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman. He joked that he was shocked to hear that his opponent, Erin Marshall, had been endorsed by the lieutenant governor, whom Comer “misidentified” as Rocky Adkins, Beshear’s senior adviser. “If you didn’t learn anything today, know that we have a lieutenant governor, and it’s not Rocky Adkins.” He called Coleman “Jackie something-or-other.”
Adkins is in effect deputy governor, traveling more with Beshear, and a certain prospect for 2027, since he ran second in the 2019 primary. He got a boon when Beshear apparently didn’t allow Coleman to represent the administration at the picnic.
Former attorney General Daniel Cameron, whom Beshear defeated last year, was a late addition to the picnic lineup, speaking on behalf of Trump, who endorsed him in last year’s primary. He said, “For Kentucky and for our country and for our culture, let’s make America great again.”
“Culture” now seems to include the internal-combustion engine. Attorney General Russell Coleman blasted “absurd EV mandates.”
Secretary of State Michael Adams, the only other term-limited constitutional officer, thanked Comer “for holding the Bidens accountable” but made an implicit 2027 case for himself at the breakfast by saying Republicans must appeal to independent voters. And he, Cameron and McConnell were the only Republican speakers who pronounced Harris’s first name correctly.
This column is republished from the Northern Kentucky Tribune, a nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism.
Al Cross is professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Kentucky. He was the longest-serving political writer for the Louisville Courier Journal (1989-2004) and national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02. He joined the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2010. The NKyTribune is the home for his commentary which is also offered to other publications.
