Cameron makes campaign stop in Ashland

Jun. 20—ASHLAND — Republican gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron vowed to put Democrat Governor Andy Beshear out of a job come November.

"Come November, we are going to retire Andy Beshear," Cameron said.

Speaking to a group of 80 or so supporters crammed into the bar area of Bella Fonte Italian Restaurant in Ashland, Cameron railed against the governor, linking the Democrat to the more left-of-center politics of the Democrat Party on the national scale.

According to the latest poll — conducted on May 22-23 and conducted by Cygnal, a polling company — if the general election were held today, 46.7% would vote for Cameron while 46.8% would vote for Beshear.

"We are in a dead heat," Cameron said, citing the poll. "That has little to do with me as a candidate more about the judgment of the governor. We want to see your values reflected."

However, in terms of favorability, the poll revealed the governor's rating actually ranked higher than that of former president Donald Trump's, with 55% stating they favored the governor and 52% stating they favored the former POTUS. Cameron's favorability rating came in at 45.5% while Joe Biden's came in at 35%, per the poll.

Cameron said there were two contrasting views.

"We have the one we experienced, a failed vision. Rather than be the governor of our state, he chose to stand with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," Cameron said. "Or we can have governor who reflects Kentucky values."

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is non-profit activist/performance group originating from the San Francisco area in 1979 to raise awareness and resources for the LGBTQIA+ community. Dressing like nuns, the group has frequently been called anti-Catholic by those on the right, a charge the group denies.

In February 2020, Beshear took a photograph with members of the Kentucky chapter during an event at the state capitol to ask the legislature to pass a statewide law including sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in discrimination laws. At the time, the photo caused controversy and has since been brought back into the spotlight earlier this month.

Cameron went onto state the work force participation in Kentucky is low, ranked 47th in the United States.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12 states rank below the nationwide workforce participation rate (defined as adults currently employed or actively seeking a job) in May.

The national average, is currently pegged at 62.6%, with Kentucky coming in at 57.5%, only outranking Arkansas, Alabama and neighboring West Virginia. However, unemployment (defined as not employed, but looking for a job within the last four weeks prior to polling) is at 3.8% in Kentucky, some of the lowest in the state's history.

According to a report entitled "20 Years in the Making: Kentucky's Work Force Crisis" produced by the Kentucky Chamber Foundation, labor participation has always been an issue in Kentucky. When measuring "prime working-age adults" ages 25-54, the labor participation in that group between 2003 and 2020 was 78%, roughly 4% less than the national average during that period, according to the chamber.

It's the 54-64 demographic where the numbers deviate — Kentucky has been 10% less than the national average for that age group during the same period.

Contributing factors, according to the chamber, include the mass retirement of Baby Boomers (accelerated due to the pandemic), slow population growth, lack of child care in rural areas, health issues among the population, opioid use, lack of options for those with felonies on their records and long term reliance on the social safety net (an issue the chamber said dates back to the 1970s).

Cameron also said violent crime is high. According to the Uniform Crime Report compiled by the FBI, violent crime (defined as crimes against persons such as rape, robbery, assault, murder and kidnapping) has been on the rise nationally since 2014, which saw a low of 361.6 offenses per 100,000 people to a peak of 398.5 per 100,000 in 2020, with a sharp spike and a fall from 2016 to 2019.

Kentucky's violent crime rate has hovered at much flatter rate, with a low in 2013 of 210.9 per 100,000 to a high of 259.1 per 100,000 in 2020. The 2021 numbers, which were not included in a 10-year trend due to a switch in reporting systems, shows 12,022 violent offenses reported by 427 law enforcement agencies.

That works out to about 266.8 per 100,000 in Kentucky for 2021, the latest available reporting year. That's still well below the national rate of 395.1 as reported by Statista — and even that rise is almost half the crime violent crime rate in 1991, considered the peak of violent crime in the post-WWII era.

"He talks about compassion, but there is nothing compassionate about a governor who shuts down churches when we needed it the most, who shuts down small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy," Cameron said.

That refers to the COVID-19 restrictions ordered by Beshear in the early days of the outbreak. The church restriction was quickly overturned by the courts and, in 2022, Beshear signed a bill passed by the legislature to prohibit the closing of churches during emergencies.

Small businesses makeup 99.3% of all Kentucky businesses, according to the Small Business Administration, employing 43.3% of the work force.

Cameron also railed against the state board of education, which he said Beshear handpicked (the governor picks 11 out of the 15 members, the remaining four are non-voting), leading to the appointment of Jason Glass, who has butted heads with the legislature after voicing opposition to anti-trans legislation passed in the latest session.

"Jason Glass said if a teacher doesn't feel comfortable with the gender ideology being taught in public schools, they need to find another job," Cameron said. "That's an attack on our values and our teachers."

According to a statement sent to the Kentucky Latern, Glass was quoted as stating, "if a teacher could not follow a district's guidelines, they should find employment elsewhere. This is the same advice that applies to any employee in any industry" in regards to guidance sent from his office regarding the use of inclusive language for LGBTQIA+ students.

Cameron also said Beshear was silent after "the Department of Justice labeled parents showing up to school board meetings as domestic terrorists."

According to Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan "consumer advocate" for voters sponsored by the Anneberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, that's patently false.

The DOJ, according to Factcheck, never used that language, nor did U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Here's a brief synopsis of the situation from an April 2022 article debunking the assertion:

"The nugget of truth behind the political spin is that a letter from the National School Boards Association to Garland last fall argued some violent threats against school officials 'could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism' that would warrant the intervention of federal law enforcement. In his response, Garland directed his agency to review strategies to address violent threats and harassment against school boards, but he didn't use the NSBA's 'terrorism' language, for which the group later apologized."

Cameron finished off his speech with a call to "dig deep," a term from his football days.

"The primary was the first half and we're now in the second half," Cameron said. "Winning or losing this will be decided by you."

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henry@dailyindependent.com