Fight for a win, play for a loss
What's a VEEPSTAKES runner-up supposed to do now?
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear was always a longshot to be Kamala Harris’ running mate.
Then again, so was Tim Walz.
Nonetheless a national campaign continues for the deep red state Democrat in his second term. Beshear’s most likely path out of Frankfort and to Washington is landing a post within a potential Harris administration, which first requires a readiness to play the part of loyal partisan soldier over the next three months.
Beshear is expected to be dispatched on behalf of the Harris-Walz ticket. Places like Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia make the most sense, given his proven electoral touch with working class voters.
But what if Harris ends up losing in November?
I pondered this question in the context of Beshear’s future for McClatchy’s Newspapers.
It gets at how a fleet of Democrats are now tasked with fighting like hell for a Democratic Party win, while delicately positioning themselves in the case of a loss >
With Beshear’s second term as Kentucky’s governor expiring in December 2027, the best case scenario for a presidential run would be in 2028. If Harris is successful, that’s when she’ll be running for a second term, bulldozing the well-laid plans of a generation of Democrats.
Jonathan Miller, a Washington-based Beshear ally who served as Kentucky’s state treasurer, has already hoisted a “Beshear 2032” signpost. Though if Harris loses to Donald Trump, recriminations inside the Democratic Party will fling far and wide.
Near the top of the post-mortems will inevitably be the question of whether Harris was too liberal a nominee to secure the confidence of swing voters in Middle America, and whether Democrats need to turn back to the center ideologically. In this scenario, if the answer is yes, the antidote could very well be Beshear.
Read my entire piece HERE.
