Fancy Farm returns as the Beshear vs. Cameron governor’s race takes center stage

Political barbs and barbecue were back in west Kentucky.

The St. Jerome Catholic Church 143rd Annual Fancy Farm picnic returned to Graves County Saturday, with the contest between Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and GOP rival Attorney General Daniel Cameron front and center.

The two have sparred for years – in the courtroom, on social media and in public appearances. On Saturday, they got their first chance to square off face-to-face.

This year’s gubernatorial election, one of just three in the nation in 2023, is expected to be the most competitive, expensive and closely watched of the races.

Both candidates criss-crossed the Central Time Zone in the lead up to the main event Saturday afternoon, including various breakfasts, lunches and dinners hosted by local parties.

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The speeches

Beshear and Cameron both towed the line between painting a positive vision for Kentucky and bringing each other down.

“This race is the difference between vision and division,” Beshear said. “They’re trying to pit us against each other… I’m ready to prove that’s a losing strategy in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

Beshear touted both recovery efforts in Kentucky and economic development announcements there. He took the time to list off several employers that have located in the area during his administration.

Cameron, meanwhile, called on conservative “Kentucky values” as a unifying force that he’d lift up as governor.

A Cameron administration, he said, would focus on “upholding the dignity of work, the family as the foundation of society, for respecting the rule of law and the dignity of our Founding Fathers.”

Beshear kicked off his speech firing directly at Cameron, with a stray shot toward First District Congressman James Comer, R-KY, who Democrats have criticized for spending time in Frankfort, where his family lives, before GOP-led redistricting morphed his district to include Frankfort.

“It’s great to be back in Western Kentucky, where my family is from, where Jamie Comer pretends to live and where Daniel Cameron shows up for a political rally but not for tornado survivors,” Beshear joked.

Cameron mostly directed his jeers at Beshear over social issues. He joked that he thought Beshear was “auditioning for a job with Bud Light’s marketing team,” a reference to the company that’s been boycotted by conservatives in response to promotional materials that included a transgender woman.

Cameron drew a contrast between how Beshear promotes himself on television and how he really is.

“‘TV Andy’ lies about his record on jobs, crime and teachers. TV Andy wants you to believe he’s never heard of Joe Biden. But when the cameras aren’t rolling and he thinks you aren’t watching, that’s when ‘Frankfort Andy,’ the real Andy Beshear, rears his head. He vetoes tax cuts. He fights for the Biden agenda. He demands that boys play in girls’ sports. He protects transgender surgery for kids.”

Beshear has never supported gender reassignment surgery for minors, though GOP politicians point to his veto of Senate Bill 150 – an omnibus bill that included a ban on the surgeries – as proof that he does.

He also criticized Beshear, saying that he “locked the schools and threw open the jails” in reference to his administration’s policy on school lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and sentencing commutations to avoid crowding in jails.

Both were met with uproar from opposing crowds under the speaking pavilion.

For the second year in a row, parts of Cameron’s speech were drowned out by chants referencing Breonna Taylor, as he was criticized on the left for the way his office handled the prosecution of police who killed her.

Notably, signs emblazoned with the governor’s first name “ANDY” instead of his legacy surname littered the country roads into Fancy Farm. Supporters lofted vertical signs with the name throughout the event, chanting “A-N-D-Y for K-Y.”

Conservatives held signs pairing Beshear with Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer who drew fire from the right.

Republicans roared as U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, R-KY, took the stage before the speaking began. Democrats in the crowd chanted “retire.”

The speech was the first major public appearance in Kentucky for McConnell after a prolonged pause in Washington D.C. led to speculation about the leader’s health.

He focused much of it on Cameron’s – the attorney general began his political career as an 18-year-old interning in McConnell’s office – race against Beshear. McConnell stressed he knew “a thing or two about beating Beshears,” as he easily defeated former governor Steve Beshear, Andy’s father, in a 1996 U.S. Senate race.

A number of the down-ballot candidates made statements in support of who was at the top of their party’s ticket and bringing down the opposing party’s nominee. Republicans, in particular, made a point to tout their entire slate and elevate Cameron in their rhetoric.

While Beshear left the stage after the candidates for attorney general were finished speaking, Cameron remained for the entire event.

Cameron to GOP: ‘Leave it all on the field’

Republicans gathered Saturday morning at the annual party breakfast in Graves County. This year’s breakfast served as a show of strength leading into a gubernatorial election that even staunch Republicans admit will be tough.

Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray, kicked off the morning’s speakings with a call to action: that Republicans give their all to elect Cameron.

Howell recalled working on a GOP congressional campaign – that of current Republican Treasurer candidate Mark Metcalf – that fell short by just four votes. He said this election effort against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear could be similarly close.

Skip and Jenny Shearouse, a pecan farmer couple from Graves County, described themselves as “very conservative Christians” motivated by issues like abortion and human trafficking. They said that Beshear “comes across as a passionate person” but that he’s actually self-serving.

“He did the job a governor should do, but at the same time a lot of that is political,” Jenny Shearouse said.

Beshear has highlighted his administration’s work in this region in the aftermath of historic tornadoes that took dozens of lives, touting it in television commercials.

Cameron himself, in his speech to the crowd, urged attendees like the Shearouses to go above and beyond in matching the efforts of the Democrats.

“We are in a prime position to win this election and advance common sense values and advance the cause of Western Kentucky, but we have to leave it all on the field… We have to do everything we possibly can because the stakes are so high,” Cameron said.

Secretary of State Michael Adams, who’s running for a second term to his office, warned Republicans in attendance that “we’ve gotta match the Democrats’ level of intensity.” The opposing party has their backs against the wall, he said.

“If we sweep for the first time in Kentucky history, they are done, they are finished. We have them in our sights and they know it,” Adams said.

Not everyone in the crowd was a lock for Cameron, though.

Mike ‘Pops’ McNerhney is from Hazel in southern Calloway County. He attended the breakfast with other members of the Kentucky Motorcycle Association, which is officially supporting Cameron against Beshear. McNerthney, however, is undecided.

McNerthney said that he spoke with Beshear at an event at a senior center when the governor was attorney general and that Beshear is a “fantastic human.” As for Cameron, McNerthney said “I don’t know him, but I’m kind of neutral.”

But he’s open to supporting either.

“For me, it’s about ‘what have you done for me and the common people,’” McNerthney said.

Beshear, Coleman go after GOP on education

At the Democrats’ Mike Miller Memorial Marshall County Bean Dinner Friday night, Gov. Andy Beshear received a warm welcome from the crowd as he touted the state’s economic outlook, largest rainy day fund in history and efforts to help support public education — a primary focus of his campaign in the 2019 election.

Beshear bashed Cameron for choosing Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, as his running mate, calling him one of “the architects of the sewer bill,” a pension-reform bill that would have reduced retirement benefits.

Beshear, who fought the bill as attorney general, said Mills was “mad. He was big mad.”

“He said he was the most frustrated he had ever been, which is exactly how Daniel Cameron felt when the best he could get was Robby Mills,” Beshear said. “I’m told that if you took everyone on Daniel’s LG list that was above Robby Mills and you put them all in a room, you’d have the biggest crowd of the Cameron campaign.”

Among the teachers supporting Beshear is Noraa Ransey, who is the star of a recent campaign commercial. She said the importance of public education was “even more a factor” of this year’s election than before.

“We still haven’t received a statewide raise. We have advocated for that in every instance,” Ransey said. “We have all these new bills that are passed that want to limit what we teach, tell us how we should teach. I am a national board-certified teacher; I know what is best for the children in my classroom.

“It feels like a slap in the face when things like that are cast,” she continued. “There are no educators at the table. ... It is political. It isn’t about what is best for our kids, and it’s not about what is best for our teachers.”

At the Graves County Democratic Breakfast on Saturday, Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman said Cameron’s campaign had “dusted off (former Gov. Matt) Bevin’s playbook to attack teachers.”

“That did not work then,” she said, “and it is not going to work now.”

On Friday night, over a roast beef, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, poppyseed chicken, and bread roll dinner, roughly 100 people listened as Cameron assured them he was the candidate to restore Kentucky’s values.

He accused Beshear of being “beholden to the far left of his party,” for allowing Kentucky’s schools to become “incubators for liberal and progressive ideas.”

“You’ve seen a governor over the last three-and-a-half years that has done anything but stand up for your values,” Cameron said in the Calvert City Civic Center Friday night. “Rather than stand with the men and women of Marshall County, this governor would rather stand with Joe Biden and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”

“When we needed it most, (Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear) decided to shut down our churches,” Cameron continued, referencing an executive order handed down by Beshear during the height of COVID-19 that kept people from gathering for in-person services.

This story will be updated. Reporters Taylor Six and Alex Acquisto contributed to this report.