In temperment and action, Beshear is the ‘right’ choice for Kentucky | Opinion

All too often political ads are misleading at best and libelous at worst. A notable exception to this pattern is the Andy Beshear ad which concludes that Daniel Cameron is “wrong for Kentucky.” The third debate between the two gubernatorial candidates in Louisville was a striking confirmation of that judgment.

In his response to how he would address the persistent racial inequity in the state, Cameron immediately shifted to the red-meat issue of violent crime, as though to reassure potential voters that this Black man would never press for racial justice. At the same time, he avoided any segue into the Brianna Taylor case, in which his gaming of the evidence he presented to the grand jury haunts him to this day.

But it was in his take on the question of what he would do should another pandemic occur on his gubernatorial watch that Cameron displayed what a disaster he would be. Playing to the libertarian fetish among the Kentucky electorate which has put in high office the likes of Rand Paul and Thomas Massie, Cameron avowed that he would never take the “top-down,” “draconian” steps that Beshear did in shutting down churches, schools, and small businesses. That, he maintained, was an infringement of “your constitutional rights.”

Okay, but one must ask: if not from the top with its incomparable bureaucratic knowledge, at what level should steps be taken? By the legislature which is not even in session and lacks the resources of the governor? Or by the people themselves, perhaps by a special referendum for every crisis? Surprisingly Cameron, who is ever ready to remind that he is Kentucky officialdom’s most loyal Trumper, did not cite the ex-president’s response to the pandemic as the very model of a laissez-faire chief executive. He likely feared providing Beshear the opening to point out the hundreds of thousands of fatalities that were the result of Trump’s refusal to lead or take any responsibility for combatting the pandemic, even when his mass rallies invariably proved to be superspreaders of COVID.

Cameron cannot refrain from a Trump-like reference to “winners and losers.” In this instance an oblique reference to Beshear’s allowing gatherings in grocery stores, but not in churches or schools. As always, Cameron has no time for context. It is one thing to shop, keeping one’s appropriate distance, quite another to pray and sing in a closely packed church for an hour or more, or to sit in a poorly ventilated classroom for seven hours, five days a week. Even early in the pandemic, there was all too disturbing evidence of the lethal toll that the virus was taking on persons who were put in such congested environments for extended periods of time.

Cameron’s concern, however, is not the statistical evidence, but the First Amendment’s right to peacefully assemble. That right, however, like the right to bear arms, is not absolute. There are circumstances in which it is not safe or healthy for a mass of people to congregate. Science and history attest that public officials have the duty to take appropriate actions to prevent the catastrophic spread of the virus. Cameron, in knee-jerk libertarian manner, puts individual rights above the public’s well-being, indeed its survival.

By contrast, Andy Beshear was dealing with a health crisis that demanded an immediate response. Based on all the expert advice that he had to draw upon from state and federal resources, the governor took decisive action that saved a great many lives. One need only compare Kentucky with our neighbors, Indiana and Tennessee. During the early stages of the pandemic, when Beshear’s regulations were fully in place, many more lives were saved in the Commonwealth than in surrounding states which adopted a much laxer approach. No matter how badly Daniel Cameron tries, he cannot rewrite history.

The bottom line is that Andy Beshear was a public leader effectively dealing with the deadliest health crisis in a century based on the best science available.

In choosing Cameron over Beshear, voters would be doing themselves and the Commonwealth a grave disservice. By his admirable handling of the COVID crisis alone, Andy Beshear has proven that he is very much the “right” governor for Kentucky.

Robert E. Curran is a professor of history emeritus at Georgetown University.