Andy Beshear seeks to distinguish himself as the anti-Vance.

I'm reading "Andy Beshear Delivers a Scathing Attack on JD Vance in Ohio, Stoking 2028 Tensions/Mr. Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, sharply criticized Mr. Vance as both angle for potential presidential runs" (NYT).

Speaking at a local Democratic Party gala in the Ohio county where Mr. Vance grew up, Mr. Beshear accused the vice president of talking down to the people of Kentucky.... And he argued that “Hillbilly Elegy” — Mr. Vance’s well-read memoir about his youth in Kentucky and Ohio — amounted to “poverty tourism” and “trafficked in this tired stereotype” about the region.... 

Mr. Beshear has repeatedly accused Mr. Vance of overstating his blue-collar roots and misrepresenting himself as a product of Appalachia.

"Ambitious Democrats Have a New Game Plan: Yak It Up About Sports/Prominent leaders are flocking to sports radio shows and podcasts, an early sign of how the party is trying to reach apolitical young men...."

A NYT article that begins:

“I hate the Packers,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said of his state’s rival football team from Wisconsin....

He's trying to show his aptitude for national politics by insulting the people of a swing state. Genius! The "coach" has a "game plan."

“The Sixers suck right now,” declared Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, lamenting the decline of Philadelphia’s basketball team.

Yeah, at least insult your own team. 

The hot takes are flowing as a parade of ambitious Democrats talk sports, trying to accentuate their salt-of-the-earth credentials and forge stronger bonds with voters.

Count the metaphors:

Are we still talking about "price gouging"?

From "Dems defend Harris’ economic policy but don’t go all in on price-gouging/Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear was alone in discussing the particulars of a policy designed to stop price gouging" (Politico).

Prominent Democrats flooded the airwaves Sunday morning to defend Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic platform — but they were hesitant to specifically back a proposed price gouging ban that has raised eyebrows among Republicans and some economists.

“I think picking this one proposal of the many she’s put out misses the broader point, which is that Vice President Harris is continuing the work of President Biden in reducing costs faced by working Americans,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.”...

From "Kamala Harris’s new economic plan draws Democrats’ praise, GOP’s scorn/Democrats touted her proposals, from grocery prices to health care, as addressing Americans’ daily concerns" (WaPo).

As Vice President Kamala Harris’s new economic proposals dominated Sunday morning’s political shows, allies touted her ideas to address food and housing costs as beneficial to middle-class Americans, while critics — including Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP vice-presidential nominee — slammed her plan as unworkable and unrealistic.

Harris’s economic plan... includes a ban on price gouging for groceries and food....  

Democrats on Sunday defended Harris’s economic proposals as targeting many Americans’ key needs, and they noted that her speech... represented the start of her policy pitch, with more detail to come....

"She would get a guy who knows how to talk to rural Americans, who knows how to reflect the most positive aspects of rural America, and therefore able to make our case to the folks in rural America who felt abandoned by the Democratic Party."

Said a Kentucky Democrat quoted in "The Amiable Attack Dog From Kentucky Who Could Join the Harris Ticket'Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of a deep-red state, is an intriguing Southern contender to become Kamala Harris’s running mate. He’s already straining to go after JD Vance" (NYT).

You know I told you yesterday, "Why Andy Beshear will be KH's choice for VP."

From the NYT article:

But with his television-ready presence, trial-lawyer training and a teaspoon of Appalachian drawl, Mr. Beshear appears ready and willing to take on another role: attack dog.... 

“JD Vance ain’t from here,” Mr. Beshear said this week on MSNBC, assailing the senator as an Ohio interloper....

Mr. Beshear kept it up later on CNN. “He claims to be from eastern Kentucky, tries to write a book about it to profit off our people, and then he calls us lazy,” he said of Mr. Vance, who has suggested that Mr. Beshear, the son of former Gov. Steve Beshear, owes his own success to nepotism. “This makes me angry.”

Why Andy Beshear will be KH's choice for VP.

It's obvious. Just look at the lineup (at WaPo): 

The force that makes her want a white man — she on her own maxes out the desired intersectionality — will make her exclude the white men who would add intersectionality — Pete Buttigieg and Josh Shapiro. That leaves 4. One is unusually unattractive. Two look old, just as KH and her accomplices are kicking old to the curb. They can't re-old. That leaves Andy. Wonderful Andy. He's 46! Just old enough to make J.D. Vance look too young. 

I don't know anything about Andy other than that he's the Governor of Kentucky. I tried googling his name and the first thing that popped up was "Andy Beshear issues apology to diet Mountain Dew after argument with JD Vance." What got him attacking Diet Mountain Dew? 

"What was weird was [Vance] joking about racism today and then talking about diet Mountain Dew. Who drinks diet Mountain Dew? But in all seriousness, he ain't from here. He is not from Kentucky. This is a guy who would come maybe in the summers for some period of time, or to weddings or funerals."

"Why can a 12-year-old go to the movies along with two dozen other people, but she can’t watch the Greatest Story Ever Told with a smaller group in Bible class?"

"Why can Kentuckians cheer on their favorite NCAA basketball teams indoors, attend a size-restricted wedding, or keep up Black Friday shopping traditions, but children can’t gather for school chapel?"

Questions asked by Danville Christian Academy and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, quoted at "Christian school in Kentucky asks justices to intervene in dispute over in-person classes at religious schools" (SCOTUSblog). 

Cameron is a Republican. He's joined the school's lawsuit challenging the COVID order put in place by Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat. The school won at the district court level. Beshear won in the 6th Circuit, which said it was enough that the Governor's order treated all schools alike. 

ADDED: To avoid violating the Free Exercise clause, it's important — in crafting a government policy — not to draw a line between religion and nonreligion. Beshear got that part right. But if Governors are unusually hesitant to open public schools, does that justify holding back private schools? Should religious private schools have a special privilege to extricate themselves from the Governor's order that is not available to nonreligious private schools?