For the last six months, Andy Beshear has been rather tempered in his approach to opposition leading up to the 2023 general election — often stating he’s seeking not left, not right, but forward progress.
But after following Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron in Saturday’s 143rd Annual Fancy Farm Picnic at St. Jerome Parish in Graves County, the Commonwealth’s 63rd governor let loose a number of volleys — directly targeting what have been repeated Republican attacks.
He opened by noting it was great to be back in west Kentucky: “where [his] family is from, and where [US Congressman] Jamie Comer pretends to live. And there’s Daniel Cameron: who will show up for a political rally, but not for tornado survivors.”
From there, the avalanche ensued.
Beshear, of course, was referencing the fact that Quarles, currently the state’s agriculture commissioner, might have been considered as Cameron’s lieutenant governor pick at one point — and perhaps declined.
Beshear pressed on, knocking Cameron’s actual pick: Henderson’s Robby Mills. He quipped that if one were to take all of the “LG” candidates above Mills, it would be the largest rally of the Cameron campaign.
He then turned to Cameron — and referenced the long, litigious efforts surrounding the 2020 death of Louisville woman Breonna Taylor.
And then, he indirectly referenced his veto of the anti-transgender sports bill, which keeps “boys from playing girls sports” across the state’s public schools.
Cameron spoke first, calling “heads” as the winner of a coin flip from Fancy Farm emcee and proud Lyon County native David Beck — who perhaps intentionally wore his Alma mater’s colors, donning a purple polo.
Beck tossed his silver dollar from 1881 — one minted in those first months after the first-ever Fancy Farm Picnic, and forged in a time of Reconstruction and the aftermath of the American Civil War. Where Bourbon Democrats opposed federal interference and Republicans were Unionist sympathizers. When agricultural challenges, industrial growth, land reform, labor rights and tariffs were top-of-the-fold issues.
Cameron smiled, and then vociferously voiced over a blue-clad crowd screaming violently, eventually chanting “Say Her Name!” in the spirit of Taylor.
He also asked Beshear: “Are you auditioning for a job with Bud Light’s marketing team?” And he urged his supporters that voters “can restore law and order” this November, and “build a future that’s based on true Kentucky values, rather than a Beshear and Biden agenda.”
And then, Cameron assigned Beshear new November pronouns — a retort based on the frequent use of male, female and other references now coined in conversation, multimedia and the workforce.
Perhaps the most energy surrounded the arrival of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao. Now 81, the long-serving senator from Kentucky exhibited health concerns in a mid-speech freeze in late July.
This time, he was spry — coming from the GOP breakfast with plenty to say to the pulpit amid cries of “ditch Mitch,” “retire” and “lost the senate.”
He riffed that Beshear was a “shutdown governor,” who couldn’t be on church grounds “without having Kentucky State Police check license plates.” It was a direct snare at Kentucky’s early measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, in which many places of worship continued to congregate despite the unknowns of the disease.
McConnell laughed, and said Beshear “makes his father [former governor, Steve] look like a Republican.”
More than 10,000 people were at Fancy Farm this year, despite torrential rains leading up to the weekend. The grounds were soaked, and many cars got stuck in the mud.
Foreshadowing, this was.
Cheers for Andy:
St. Jerome’s Father Darrell Venters Prayer Offering:
Political Chair Steven Elder:
My Old Kentucky Home:
Lyon County’s David Beck:
Daniel Cameron’s full speech:
Rep. Richard Heath’s Zinger:
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