If you thought the Ky GOP primary was bad, just wait for general election | Opinion
Well, we just finished the nastiest, most expensive, most painful gubernatorial primary in recent memory, and if you thought this was bad, just wait.
As mostly predicted, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron wiped the floor with his opponents, and now will go against Gov. Andy Beshear into the the nastiest, most expensive and most painful governor’s general election that most of us have ever seen. How nasty? We got a taste in Cameron’s victory speech, which spent more time attacking Beshear than touting his own policies.
The most expensive part of the primary finished in third place. Turns out spending $11 million of your husband’s coal fortune and targeting trans kids as a central policy position was not compelling enough for voters to come out and vote for Kelly Craft. The Crafts have so much money this will be a blip, but $11 million for a probable third place has got to sting.
Craft’s loss also enabled Trump to get a quick dig in at Ron DeSantis, who made a last-minute and little-publicized endorsement of Craft on Monday night. Her loss also topped a rough week for Congressman James Comer, Kentucky’s supposed new political kingmaker whose less than spectacular investigations into Hunter Biden landed with a thump.
Neither did Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles’ more folksy, grassroots approach work altogether, although it did push him into second place, and as some have wondered, a possible lieutenant governor offer. Cameron and Quarles would make a good pair on paper, with Quarles bringing some rural bona fides to Cameron’s campaign.
Cameron, who was the first Black candidate to win statewide office in Kentucky, has danced a delicate waltz between his original mentor, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and McConnell’s sworn enemy, Donald Trump, whose name was on Cameron’s lips approximately 95 percent of the campaign. Including his victory speech.
Cameron has stayed loyal to an indicted former president found liable for sexual assault who fomented an attempted coup and is under investigation for numerous other crimes. The loyalty certainly paid off on primary day, but it will be interesting to see how it’s rewarded by women and independent voters in November.
But Trump fever abated in other corners of the state; Secretary of State Michael Adams easily defeated two election deniers, and the Trumpiest of all the candidates, Republican Eric Deters, came in fourth. Sadly, he beat the eminently reasonable Somerset Mayor Alan Keck, but did not wreak predicted havoc in the rest of the race.
Now we’ll find out just how popular Beshear is, and whether a total ban on abortion without exceptions will backfire on Cameron or not. It will also be interesting to see if Louisville Democrats will punish Cameron for his lack of action in the Breonna Taylor case.
Because of course the biggest story was that even in a fiery hot GOP primary, only 10 percent of voters showed up. Bad weather was a factor, but it’s also clear that voters are weary of incessant negative ads, zillions of dollars wasted ($10 million on ads alone) and a lot of culture war nonsense when Kentucky suffers from so many real problems. Maybe the general election can take on more substantive topics and tones, but probably not. Get ready for a long and painful silly season.
This story was originally published May 16, 2023 at 8:36 PM.
