I'm an Andy Beshear Democrat
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear sported jeans in Vogue and eyes a possible 2028 Presidential run.
Something rare happened this week. Jeans were spotted in Vogue. That’s right. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear might very well be the first person to wear jeans in Vogue. That could just be him exaggerating but this Kentucky native is pleased.
I met Andy back on November 4, 2014 at the Louisville Democratic Party’s victory celebration. It’s the only time I met him as I was busy with a contract job in 2015 while he was campaigning for Attorney General. Of course, I moved back to Chicago in early 2016 and there’s rarely been an opportunity to see Gov. Beshear as such. If I’d been invited to the DMFI luncheon during the DNC it would have happened. Alas, it didn’t.
Andy is making the rounds. A few days after appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, he was off to visit South Carolina. Beshear didn’t rule out running for president. The fact that he stopped in South Carolina says it all. He’s running. Even if he hasn’t announced his presidential campaign, he’s all but in. If he’s in, he’ll get my endorsement. I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t. You can take the girl out of Kentucky but you can’t take Kentucky out of the girl—even during the pandemic, I could be found watching Andy’s Team Kentucky updates frequently.
Asked whether he was running for president, Beshear said, “What I’m doing right now is trying to be a reasonable voice out there that hopefully doesn’t just bring Democrats back together, but Democrats, Republicans and independents.”
“This country has gotten far too partisan, too much ‘us versus them.’ If we can focus on the core issues that lift up every single American, then we can actually move not right or left, but forward as a country,” Beshear added.
Days earlier, he appeared on CNN’s State of the Union and didn’t rule it out. There’s more about his South Carolina visit here.
“We have a huge opportunity right now. Donald Trump is tearing apart our democratic norms,” Beshear told union members at the Greenville event. “He’s gutting the social safety net. He’s weaponizing our national guards. He’s fraying our international alliances, and he is decimating our intelligence community and our public health expertise.”
All of that, Beshear explained, makes it a prime opportunity for Democrats to “win back voters who have been increasingly skeptical of that Democratic brand. But it’s going to take focus, and it’s going to take discipline. We’ve got to talk to people and not at them, and we have to explain our why.”
I can understand why people would rally around Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. I live here. He can self-finance his own campaign. But at the same time, Pritzker is Jewish and I worry about the antisemitism that I know would arise during the campaign. California Gov. Gavin Newsom lost me when he decided to turn his back on transgender Americans. Andy hasn’t done this, thank G-d.
We can talk about which candidates can draw crowds at a rally but at the end of the day, rallies don’t vote. You need to run for something, not just be running against something.
Take a look at these comments from the Vogue article. Andy isn’t wrong. That’s what I appreciate about his pragmatic approach.
“I think what AOC is doing in generating energy is important, and it’s needed, and I believe in a party that everyone can be a part of,” he tells me, without saying that he’s intending to run for anything. “But if we want to not only win, but then govern, well, it’s got to be more than about being against someone. It’s got to be about being for something. We have to have a compelling vision of making someone’s life better.”
I bring up Zohran Mamdani, the New York assemblyman who won the mayoral primary, and how much excitement he’s generating.
“As did the vice president,” Beshear reminds me. “Energy doesn’t always translate into victory.”
Andy’s not wrong. Mamdani has largely turned off many Jewish voters and I don’t see him being able to attract a good portion of those votes later this year.
I’m just go hoping we can stave off some of the never-ending damage in the leadup to 2029 by taking back the House of Representatives during the 2026 midterm election. It’s doable. The election might not be free or fair as we’d like to think, but Democrats have a solid shot.
The Senate is the uphill climb. There’s a chance at flipping a few seats but not enough to take the chamber. North Carolina has a chance to turn blue. Georgia is a question mark as to if Jon Ossoff will be able to retain the seat. While there are many people who think Andy Beshear would make the best Democratic candidate to replace Mitch McConnell, it’s hard to say how he would fare. Kentuckians haven’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford was re-elected in 1992. It’s a key reason why I had a tough time suspending disbelief while watching Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016.
In other news, AOC had her Bronx office vandalized because she voted against removing Iron Dome funding. The DSA even criticized her but they are antisemitic AF so this isn’t even surprising anymore. The Iron Dome is a missile defense system that saves lives. It’s not an offensive weapon and anyone who is against funding an Israeli missile defense system is somebody whose judgements I question. I have family and friends living in Israel. Without the Iron Dome, there would be more dead Jews and that’s just unacceptable.
Chicago is under another heat watch (likely to be turned into a warning) later today so I’m doing my best to stay inside as much as I can. Caffeine does nothing in these temps but if I have to leave, it won’t be until after nightfall. I’m going to otherwise do my best to make a dent in my Blu-ray pile that never seems to get any lower.
In entertainment news:
I saw The Fantastic Four: First Steps this week. They’ve finally done right by Marvel’s First Family.
I rewatched The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! in advance of the 2025 reboot.
Tubi announced their August 2025 listings.