Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) is drawing praise from Democrats for pressing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for transparency on his lengthy convalescence, but Republicans say the move is nothing more than a gimmick to bolster a potential 2028 presidential bid.
Beshear escalated his calls for transparency this week by telling McConnell in a letter to “directly and verbally address the people of Kentucky and provide proof of your capacity to serve, or resign.” The letter came after McConnell’s office released another photograph of the senator and his wife in the hospital, weeks after suffering a fall that took him out of the public eye and stirred online theories about his well-being and ability to serve in office.
“It has now been 43 days since news of your hospitalization,” Beshear wrote. “During that time you have cast zero votes, engaged in no official activities, and aside from two photos and corresponding statements, have made no effort to communicate with your Kentucky constituents or the nation.”
Republicans contend Beshear is abandoning the bipartisan image that has made him one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent governors in favor of rhetoric aimed at winning over progressive activists ahead of a possible presidential campaign.
“By promoting ghoulish conspiracy theories about Sen. McConnell’s health, Andy Beshear has essentially fed a feral animal, and when you feed that beast once, you can never stop feeding it or it will bite your hand off,” former Kentucky Republican Party communications director Tres Watson told the Washington Examiner.
Watson argued Beshear risked alienating moderate voters attracted to his “Clintonesque ‘I feel your pain’” brand while still not going “nearly far enough for the feral, terminally online Left.”
Kentucky Republican strategist TJ Litafik agreed, arguing that “taking shots at McConnell will generate national attention and play well with Democratic activists and primary voters who have spent years despising the senator,” but it also came at a risk.
“Kentuckians generally don’t like seeing someone’s age or health turned into a political opportunity, particularly when the target is an 84-year-old man who has represented the commonwealth for more than four decades, and who isn’t running again,” Litafik told the Washington Examiner. “If Beshear continues to push harder, it looks less like genuine concern and more like base opportunism.”
Democrats counter that Beshear is raising legitimate questions about whether Kentucky is being adequately represented while McConnell remains away from the Senate.
“We get elected by the people. The people are the boss. I think Andy Beshear is showing great restraint and respect in what he’s saying,” former California Sen. Barbara Boxer said during an appearance on MS NOW this week.
Simultaneously, some Democrats have questioned Beshear’s strategy regarding McConnell when the senator’s absence from the Senate and inability to vote by proxy could undermine President Donald Trump’s agenda in Congress before November’s midterm elections, after which Republicans could lose control of one of the chambers.
“Conspiracy theories are fun and all, but if you care about counting votes in the Senate, it is far better to have McConnell MIA these days,” Democratic strategist Jim Manley, who was communications director for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told the Washington Examiner.
Spokespeople for Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. But Democratic strategist Matt Bennett, a former top aide to then-President Bill Clinton, came to the governor’s defense.
“Beshear has an obligation to ensure that the people of Kentucky have a senator who is capable of representing them,” the Third Way executive vice president for public affairs told the Washington Examiner. “It’s not at all clear that they do, so what he’s doing is appropriate. I doubt it will have much impact on a presidential run, but showing some spine and leadership like this can only help him.”
Beshear’s strategy comes as Democrats will likely encounter more questions about concerns regarding former President Joe Biden‘s physical and mental acuity when he was seeking a second term in office amid the release of his latest memoir after November’s elections.
But for Kentucky Republican Party communications director Adam Hope, it is “hypocritical” for Beshear to “blow this situation [with McConnell] out of proportion after remaining largely silent” when Republicans expressed concerns about Biden’s very “obvious cognitive decline.”
“Gov. Beshear will undoubtedly continue issuing statements and sending strongly worded letters in an effort to elevate himself and his presidential ambitions, despite polling in the single digits,” Hope told the Washington Examiner.
To that end, support for a Beshear 2028 presidential campaign polls at an average of 3 percentage points, well behind the likes of former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose share of the hypothetical Democratic primary vote registers in double digits, according to RealClearPolitics.
Regardless, Beshear is embarking on a 13-stop book tour next month to promote his new memoir, Go and Do Likewise, a potential precursor to a presidential campaign. Stops, for example, include cities in early-voting primary election states, such as Georgia, Michigan, and New Hampshire.
McConnell announced his decision to retire after seven terms in the Senate, during which time he became the chamber’s longest-serving majority leader, on his 83rd birthday in February.
WHAT LEGISLATION HAS MITCH MCCONNELL’S ABSENCE STALLED IN THE SENATE?
McConnell was hospitalized in Washington, D.C., on June 14 and has not been seen in public since, though his doctors wrote in a note accompanying this week’s statement that he is out of the hospital but has not been “medically cleared” to return to work in the Senate.
McConnell’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment, but the senator wrote this week he was “working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders.”