Five key moments in the first Kentucky governor’s debate between Andy Beshear and Daniel Cameron

Bingo. Barbs. Bidenomics.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican challenger Attorney General Daniel Cameron met for their first debate of the general election season in Paducah Thursday, with each man making the case as to why he should be the commonwealth’s leader — and why his opponent should not.

The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce Gubernatorial Candidate Forum focused on issues of economic development and regional importance, but the social issues and national politics that have become a focus on the statewide contest also found their way on stage.

And for anyone who missed the hour-long conversation, fear not!

Beshear and Cameron will meet on stage four more times in the next 12 days — as soon as Monday — so there are plenty more metaphorical elbows to be thrown before Election Day.

Here are five key moments from the first debate.

Cameron came out swinging

With neither the polls nor the fundraising dollars on his side, Cameron was on the offensive; he made his first dig at Beshear a mere 15 seconds into his opening statement.

“Now Gov. Beshear and (President) Joe Biden will tell you that everything is going well in this commonwealth and in this country, but I assume that if you’re here today, you don’t believe that,” Cameron said. “You’ve got concerns about inflation destroying your wallet. You’ve got concerns about the far left trying to indoctrinate your kids. And, you’ve got concerns about Joe Biden’s war on coal.”

Cameron would go on to mention Biden or Bidenomics more than a dozen times before the forum’s close.

Cameron and his Republican allies have been aggressively messaging in recent months that Beshear and Biden are one and the same.

Beshear’s bingo card

Those frequent Biden mentions gave us another recurring theme of the debate: bingo.

“Everybody, if you had Joe Biden or the far left on your bingo card today, congratulations, you just won,” Beshear quipped after one such attack from Cameron over tax cuts.

With a room of 600 onlookers in addition to the audience watching via live-stream, Beshear’s reaction to Cameron’s barbs included head-shaking, disapproving looks and laughter, along with the occasional interjection.

After debate moderator, WPSD Local 6’s Todd Faulkner, asked each candidate what distinguished them from their opponent, Cameron pledged to represent Kentuckians’ “interests and values,” before rattling off attacks about the commonwealth’s former education commissioner Jason Glass, vaccine mandates and destruction of the fossil fuel industry.

“Who else got the bingo?” Beshear asked.

Bingo carried over to social media that afternoon, with Cameron releasing a “Biden-Beshear Bingo” card with spaces that included “defund the police,” “radical gender ideology” and “lying!”

McConnell, Paul and the bipartisan infrastructure bill

Just as Cameron sought to tie Beshear to Biden, Beshear made sure to point Cameron’s own partisanship.

In response to a question about bridges and roads, Cameron praised his mentor, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, for his work in passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

“Well, folks, you keep hearing it,” Beshear said of Cameron. “Anything good that happens is members of my party in Washington, and anything that bad that happens is members of your party, here or there.”

Beshear said he, too, was glad for McConnell’s work on the bill.

“But the rest of the federal delegation outside of the representative from Louisville voted against it,” Beshear said, referencing then-Rep. John Yarmuth, a Democrat. “So I’m curious if the attorney general believes that (U.S. Sen.) Rand Paul was wrong, and our other congressmen were wrong?”

A political action committee connected to Paul, the Protect Freedom PAC, is spending in the governor’s race backing Cameron, and the senator’s wife, Kelley Paul, has campaigned with the “Moms for Cameron” initiative.

Economic development news coming soon?

In response to a question from Faulkner about attracting new employers to West Kentucky, Beshear hinted that news could be coming on that front.

“Since I’ve become governor, the Purchase area has seen 47 announcements creating 1,544 new jobs,” Beshear said. “We are proud of that work.”

Beshear noted the people in attendance who work in economic development “know how close we are to that next big one.”

“We have worked together, hand-in-hand, for what would be some of the largest, most exciting projects looking at McCracken County and the surrounding region,” he said.

“And while we are covered by NDAs, we are so close. We’re working with your developers. We’re working with your utilities. We are making sure that we have everything we need so that you get that next big one.”

If West Kentucky were to land a major economic development project, it wouldn’t be the only region. There’s also chatter about a “mega-site” in Madison County.

‘Got under his skin a little bit’

Unsurprisingly, both candidates and their camps say they walked away from Thursday’s forum on top.

Speaking at an Office of the Attorney General event in Benton following the debate, Cameron said he won.

“I felt like I probably got under his skin a little bit,” he said of Beshear, “talking about how close he is to Joe Biden.”

The governor, meanwhile, slammed Cameron for “trying to get into the rank partisanship that’s been tearing our country apart.”

Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge said in a memo Kentuckians won’t “replace an effective leader like Andy Beshear.”

“There is no way Kentucky voters could have watched today’s debate and think that Cameron is fit to be governor,” he wrote.