Dem
47
GOP
53
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) is nothing if not confident. Rather than attacking his likely presidential primary opponents, like Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), his opening bid is attacking a possible general-election opponent, J.D. Vance. And while Beshear will be a formidable primary competitor, his primary victory is far from assured since there are a fair number of equally formidable primary competitors.
On Saturday, Beshear was in the Ohio county where Vance grew up. Beshear called Vance "the most arrogant politician I have ever seen." Beshear said that Vance makes Donald Trump look humble, no easy feat. Then he went on attacking Vance: "Ohio deserved a much better senator than him, and we all deserve a much better vice president."
Beshear attacked Vance's origin story, claiming that Vance was largely raised in Middletown, OH, which is near Cincinnati and not part of Appalachia. In other words, Vance's "up from nothing" story is actually false. He also attacked Vance for saying that a woman who is raped and gets pregnant, must carry the fetus to term, a position he completely disagrees with.
Beshear also made a couple of questionable assumptions when he said: "There is no one who will work harder, no matter what I am doing next year, to beat J.D. Vance in 2028." First, he is assuming he will be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and a few others might quibble with that. People like politicians to be confident, so not a big problem.
Assuming that Vance will be the Republican nominee is a mistake of a different order. As an experienced politician, Beshear ought to know that a week is a long time in politics and 2 years is a close approximation to infinity. If Beshear did his homework, he should know that Vance's main "principle" (to the extent that he has any principles, which we doubt), it is that he is against "forever wars in the Middle East." Yet he is now a big cheerleader for another forever war in the Middle East. No matter how this one ends, his primary opponents are going to hang this around his neck. There is plenty of video of Vance saying he is against getting the U.S. involved in wars in the Middle East and plenty of video saying he likes the current one. Just fire up Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro and you've got an ad right there. Voters who really don't like forever wars in the Middle East are going to see him as a hypocrite, liar or fool. Vance also has an obnoxious, in-your-face personality and fails the beer test badly, certainly compared to other Republican hopefuls like Marco Rubio, Glenn Youngkin, and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA). This doesn't mean we think Vance is unlikely to get the nomination, just that he is no shoo-in, especially if the war in Iran ends badly and he is still cheerleading it in the end. He might get it, but he will have to earn his spurs in a more competitive environment than Vance or Beshear is expecting now.
Maybe this speech was a one-off preemptive attack on a potential general-election opponent, but it will be interesting to see if Beshear keeps it up, especially when he has a much more inviting target: Donald Trump. He won't have to run against Trump, but getting out there against Trump now will give Beshear more credibility with the Democratic base. It has worked very well for Newsom, and could work well for Beshear. One approach he could try, which we suspect would be a big hit with much of the Democratic base, would be to promise to appoint an aggressive AG who will vigorously prosecute all the lawbreakers in the current administration from Trump all the way down. (V)