Andy Beshear, like seemingly everyone who’s anyone, now has a podcast.
For a two-term governor who has made so many liberal comments that his prospects of any other state office are dim, this project doesn’t make much sense. Despite Beshear’s distinctly human magnetism, I am not naive enough to think that there is no political calculus behind this move.
But to understand why Beshear is putting himself back into the headlines, it’s important to understand who leads the political world that will read them.
For years, the main Democratic governor on the national stage was California’s Gavin Newsom, whose own podcast has made disjointed efforts to pander to the right, quite the move from someone whose brand of mind-over-matter West Coast liberalism has left the entire progressive wing of his party in ribbons.
Newsom’s dominance has been so widespread that, in 2023, he debated Ron Desantis as the representative of literally all Democratic governors—and managed to lose. The ways he has misused his power have made me quip on several occasions that Newsom manages to be everything wrong with the Democratic Party.
Beshear, with his empathy, down-to-earth speeches and hard focus on the economy, seems to be casting himself as the alternative to Newsom’s political formula.
But none of this started with the podcast, or even with being shortlisted for Kamala Harris’s running mate pick. His first term as governor coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, and his leadership created a new yet distinctly old-school style of communication. He found out how to win elections while making people feel less afraid of the bloc they’re voting against—in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by over 600,000.
And then, he seemed to realize something: that didn’t have to end with COVID. So much of Beshear’s unifying message was sorely needed for so long before he came on the scene, and even after the vaccine came, the division Beshear set out to heal showed no signs of abating. The #TeamKentucky brand has endured, though Beshear’s somewhat aggressive marketing has given the slogan one flaw, which is that it cannot stand alone; it’s more or less impossible to imagine it detached from its coiner.
But Beshear doesn’t seem keen on retiring it anytime soon. His term as governor will end in 2027, one year late for a challenge to the now-vacated Mitch McConnell senate seat. I’m beginning to think, though, that this won’t be a problem for Beshear.
I want to avoid speculation wherever I can, and I should be clear that Beshear’s office has announced none of the plans I’m about to discuss. But, still, it’s impossible not to see how a 2027 term end sets up Beshear to challenge the presidency in 2028.
After three months of Trump chaos, part of me wants to celebrate any potential White House material as unambiguously good news. But I can’t, in good conscience, do that.
It’s not that I don’t think Beshear could win; he could. It’s not that I doubt his ability to lead; it is exceptional. I am confident that he could secure power. My fear is what he would do with it.
It’s here that I’ll plead to Governor Beshear himself: don’t become another Bill Clinton.
Clinton emerged at a time when the Democrats seemed to be facing extinction, and he challenged a Republican Party shaped by a person composed equally with charisma, power hunger and hatred for bureaucrats. This should sound familiar.
Clinton’s problem, though, was that his win was more for the Democratic establishment than the Democratic base. Yes, he made massive gains, but his administration also dragged the party to the deregulatory middle in a way that would cripple the progressive movement until well beyond the present day.
It’s not that Beshear wouldn’t have to go to the middle in some places; he just wouldn’t have to dilute every single progressive opinion he has. My argument isn’t that Beshear should throw his personality around and shatter every norm in the name of man-of-the-people sincerity. My argument is that it’s well past time to buck the conventional Democratic wisdom that the only two places someone can go are the polar ends of the left-wing base.
The first of these is college campus–style, morally pure and insufferably righteous social progressivism, which would no doubt run the party into irrelevance like a Boeing jet into the north Atlantic.
The second would win more elections, but it’s just as brainless. It’s the idea that Democrats should dash to the center to win over disillusioned Republicans, as if the Republican Party is anything more than a cult of Donald Trump.
For one, if Dick Cheney endorsing Kamala Harris won’t peel off some mysterious sect of never-Trump conservatives who haven’t already changed sides, then nothing will. More to the point, though, is that centrism won’t actually make people’s lives better; at best, it’ll stop them from getting worse.
The stubbornness of this delusion just shows that centrist Democrats have forgotten what pragmatism means. Elections aren’t the final arena of politics. To be truly pragmatic, policies should have some positive change on the world to show for them while still being politically feasible. This may be the Democrats’ biggest blunder in the Trump 47 era—it isn’t enough to say that Trump abuses his power; they have to tell the public what they’d do if power were given to them.
The Democrats’ missteps in their resistance to Trump have been staggering. It takes an advancedly moronic party to look between two failing options and, like a warthog with a blindfold, stomp on them both until neither has any breath left in its chest.
There’s already quite a bit of daylight between Beshear and Clinton, though, and it’s why I’m hopeful. Beshear has Clinton’s charisma, but in a barrage of anti-tariff social media posts he has shown that he does not shy away from sinking his teeth into economic injustices.
Beshear demonstrates the virtuous medium between today’s two leading Democratic plans of attack. He knows that, if Democrats want to keep their progressive voters from staying home, they’ll need some form of populism, and to stop the moderates from getting uneasy, that populism will have to be economic. Social issues—from Palestine to LGBTQ+ rights—are causing the Democrats to bleed voters, and Beshear sees that it’s time for a shift in focus.
This isn’t to say a presidential candidate version of Beshear has to abandon marginalized people entirely. He would just frame the issues differently. As governor, has taken a somewhat classic Southern approach to these politics, where he will defend people whenever the issue comes up, but understands that, for most voters, there are simply other priorities to hold in balance.
The Andy Beshear Podcast recently aired its first episode. Its description reads, “This isn’t a political podcast—it’s a human one.” Beshear is the first politician I’ve seen in years who can say these words and actually seem to mean them. I’m conditioned to be terrified that this kind of language is insincere, but Beshear’s leadership through the pandemic and his presence in the post-Biden world has let me lay down my shield and be convinced for once that there’s a public figure who cares for caring’s sake.
It won’t be enough on its own, of course. The right continues to dominate the Internet in ways that will take major shifts in focus to counter. But Beshear will carry that fire in the same way he always has—kindly and firmly, revering his office and using its power to protect anyone he can.
One more direct appeal: run for president, Governor. Run, and then win.
