Lincoln Day Dinner highlights: Talks of 'neutering Beshear' to trans athlete ban debate

Speakers at the Jefferson County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner were united Wednesday night in attacking Gov. Andy Beshear as U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, state attorney general and gubernatorial hopeful Daniel Cameron and competitive swimmer Riley Gaines took the stage at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

The dinner even saw a quip about the JCPS busing situation, with Paul joking that "(The Democrats') new strategy for turning the vote out is to use Jefferson County Public School buses." Transgender athletes' participation in women's sports has emerged as a new constant in campaign discussions this year while the COVID-19 pandemic continued to be a key talking point against Beshear.

Here are three takeaways from the evening:

More: Takeaways from Fancy Farm: Beshear and Cameron face off and more transgender attacks

McConnell offers pre-recorded message: 'All eyes are on Kentucky this year'

Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator, did not attend, though he briefly appeared in a pre-recorded message to speak about "the biggest job" Kentucky Republicans currently have: Taking back the governor’s seat.

"All eyes are on Kentucky this year," McConnell said. "And Beshear has been hard at work putting his left-ish vision into action. And unfortunately, the damage caused by the Democrats' destructive policies is literally all around us."

He attributed rising inflation to these policies, urging GOP voters to oust Beshear.

"I know we've got what it takes to give Beshear the boot once and for all," McConnell said.

Riley Gaines makes pitch for Daniel Cameron

Gaines opened her speech with a short introduction of how she went from a competitive swimmer from Tennessee to a GOP keynote speaker.

Gaines, who wrapped up her collegiate athletic career at the University of Kentucky last year, stepped into the national spotlight when she began criticizing the inclusion of trans athletes in women's sports after she tied for fifth place with a trans woman, Lia Thomas, in a 2022 NCAA championship race. She has since dived into the political circuit, speaking at various Republican events and appearing in campaign advertisements for politicians including Paul.

At the Lincoln Day dinner, Gaines recounted her experience competing against and sharing a locker room with Thomas, which she said was unfair and inappropriate to her and some of her fellow competitors.

"That's what Title IX was enacted to protect, and what the Biden administration is doing now to Title IX — and are trying to do it discreetly and secretly; they're rebranding it entirely ― to where it's no longer preventing discrimination on the basis of sex," she said. "It's preventing discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And this is bigger than just sports.”

Gaines noted her fear of transgender women being included in spaces such as dormitories, sororities and restrooms.

"As a Christian myself, when I see a lot of these cultural issues that are plaguing this country, it's entirely spiritual. It's a spiritual warfare. And it's no longer right versus wrong or good versus bad. This really is moral versus evil.”

Though a Tennessee native, Gaines emphasized her affection for Kentucky.

"I really just live right over the Kentucky border, so I wanna call myself a Kentuckian, she said. "Maybe I'll feel more apt to when Governor Cameron takes his position."

Beshear's COVID-19 policies still a hot-button topic for Kentucky GOP

"Louisville is a great town, and it's great to be a Republican in Louisville. But it's not always easy to be a Republican in Louisville," Paul said in his opening remarks.

Besides the jest thrown at the JCPS bus problems, Paul spent the majority of his speech criticizing Beshear's actions during the 2020 shutdown during the beginning and height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"What happened, and we saw it here, was the greatest threat to liberty that I've seen in my lifetime, and it worries me," Paul said.

Earlier, Gaines shared her opinion against vaccination while she was still a student in Kentucky.

"We had administrators and teachers and people within the athletic department who were telling us we had to get the vaccine — 'You have to get it. If you don't get it, you'll be hurting your team and you won't be able to travel.' —All these things, to which made me question: You can't make me get that vaccine. And that was the first time I learned to say no, for myself, to authority figures like that," Gaines said.

Paul made note of the 2020 incident when Beshear sought to enforce his administration's mandate against mass gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic by cracking down on large, in-person Easter services. He also applauded the Republican-backed legislature's efforts to limited Beshear's emergency response authority to the COVID pandemic.

"They neutered Governor Beshear and thank God they did," Paul said. "It takes people to stand up and fight. And we are lucky that our nominee (Daniel Cameron) has taken that fight to Beshear, that our nominee has stood up for constitutional principle, (and) that our nominee is not afraid to stand up for all of us."

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Lincoln Day Dinner: Kentucky Republicans take shots at Gov. Beshear