Actress Ashley Judd is reportedly mulling a run for the US Senate against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.
The Hollywood movie star and eighth-generation Kentuckian is seriously exploring a 2014 run for the Senate to take on the powerful Republican leader, four people familiar with the matter tell POLITICO. In recent weeks, Judd has spoken with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) about the possibility of a run, has discussed a potential bid with a Democratic pollster and has begun to conduct opposition research on herself to see where she’s most vulnerable in the Bluegrass State, sources say.
So, she’s forcing herself to watch her movies?
Whether Judd jumps into the race remains far from certain. She’s reportedly also weighing whether to wait until 2016 to instead take on freshman Sen. Rand Paul, sources say.
But if Judd does become a candidate, she would be the biggest celebrity to run for the Senate since Al Franken’s successful 2008 bid for the Minnesota seat. And her entrance would add a level of star power to a race that was already poised to be the highest-profile in the country with the Senate Republican leader up for a sixth term in 2014.
“She is doing all the things that a serious candidate exploring a race should do,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) told POLITICO after speaking with her. “I think there are a lot of people, and I was one of them, who wanted to let her know that her candidacy would be an exciting prospect for us. That’s what I wanted her to know. A lot of the labor unions, they were telling me that too.”
Ashley Judd is an attractive but middling actress who, to put it politely, it not famous for her intellect. She’s primarily known for getting naked in movies, which would add an odd twist to a Senate race, as most of her potential constituents have probably seen her in her birthday suit. Though she is from Kentucky, she is no longer of Kentucky, having left the Bluegrass State for Hollywood and its values years ago. Judd didn’t just leave geographic Kentucky, she left behind what makes Kentucky Kentucky. She’s also known for posing as an intellectual while actually being a lightweight, as many Hollywood actors do. She is known for taking a Hollywood extremist line on environmental causes. She has taken stands against coal, and Kentucky is very much a coal state. I’m sorry, but those are the facts, and it’s fair game to hold her professional and personal choices against her.
Judd’s mulling a run, and the Democrats’ embrace of her potential run, is a sign of arrogance. Ronald Reagan, she is not. Judd does not have the political firepower that Reagan worked hard and built up, however well she will undoubtedly read lines in her ads and recite her speeches on the stump. Whereas Reagan spent years outside the limelight and off the stage as a union leader and thinker, developing his politics across decades and putting them into practice as governor of a huge state, Judd has recited lines, penned a few columns and generally done nothing very serious about much of anything. That makes her a perfect Democrat in this day and age.
Kentucky is not California. Or Minnesota, that matter, which has elected both loudmouth wrestler Jesse Ventura and barely humorous comedian Al Franken to public office. Kentucky is probably a bit more resistant to celebrity infatuation than most states. Kentucky bravely resisted Barack Obama’s star power in 2008 and in 2012. If Obama couldn’t fool Kentuckians, why would Ashley Judd?
Judd’s run for the Senate would tell us a few things about America. It would help us calibrate where reason and reality still matter, and where they don’t. If she runs and loses, she’ll blame it on “the patriarchy” or some such nonsense, but she would be losing because she is not a serious person, and average Americans in flyover country would be showing that they still hold values, ideas and a few other things above celebrity. It might chasten the celebrity-addicted Democrats and would certainly humiliate an actress who thinks too highly of herself. On the other hand, if she runs and wins in a place like Kentucky, we’re done as a nation. Done. If that’s the case, we might as well know it and figure out how to deal with it.
“She’s primarily known for getting naked in movies, which would add an odd twist to a Senate race, as most of her potential constituents have probably seen her in her birthday suit. “
Oh, the “Ashley Judd—she’s got nothing to hide” ads would be a hoot.
Great. I’m sure she’ll make conspicuous declarations about how all people should be free to marry any entity, sentient or non-sentient, that exist in space and time and how wrong it is to pull the heads off of small animals and to torture dolphins.
…and how all great literature is written by someone with a name other than Jones or Smith. Jones and Smith will tell you.
“Ashley Judd is an attractive but middling actress who, to put it politely, it not famous for her intellect. ”
Oh crap, she’s already won it then.
I’m fron Kentucky (Lexington) and if she runs the yokels will vote for her. I’m sad to say we deserve what we get.
Yeahbut…have you ever seen Mitch McConnell naked? Huh? Have ‘ya?
– is turning into California.
Ace of Spades HQ has an excellent post on this today, incidentally.
Read it along with the comments last night. The next time one of my arrogant liberal friends horks up the canard about how all conservatives are backward, anti-intellectual morons, I’m pointing them to Ace’s post. Judd is functionally retarded.
I’m sure Ms. Judd feels she has a lot to bring to the party. God help us all.
Can we please get hit by an asteroid or killer solar flare soon, I’m not sure I can holdout until Dec 21st?
Scarpia
not famous for her intellect
Sounds like she’ll fit right in, then.
IMDB page for her
She gets my vote. I’m not longer a Republican so who cares?
Kentucky is toast. When people refer to the “most attractive” candidate, they won’t be talking about her intellect.
As for her being nude in her movies, who cares?
Sadly, Mitch McConnell is a weak candidate right off the bat – so may as well go ahead and consider it a done deal.
Bet that whole secession thing is gonna look a lot better to a lot more folks before this is over with.
From her IMDB bio:
…was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Kentucky, where she majored in French …
She is an etymologist
Is fluent in French
… did two episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987), her character was loved by fans.
Received a Mid-Career Masters in Public Administration (MC/MPA) from Harvard in May 2010; this is a one-year course of study.
I see nothing about lots of naked roles.
What’s not to like?
Her latest film escapade was a short-lived TV series (ABC, as I recall), where she is an ex-CIA agent who runs all over Europe (sometimes literally) trying to rescue her kidnapped son. I think this is sufficient experience for her to be our next UN ambassador. If we can talk the WH into that, Kentucky will be off the hook.
Married to a famous race car driver, Dario Franchitti.
Let’s not kid ourselves here, she lives a lavish world-travelling lifestyle.
Junior Senator from Kentucky? And having to hang around in Washington for votes and stuff?
No thanks, she’ll stick with clothing optional film roles, and wearing absurd floppy hats to her husband’s car races.
She’ll run in 2016 and she’ll win. Hillary will be running as the Dem nominee for President. This will be a continuation of the “war on women”. Wherever a Dem female candidate opposes a male candidate, they’ll win.
Oh, that goes for 2014 too. Be prepared for a Dem majority House.
Thanks, GOP House, for not naming any female committee chairs. You made their point. It will just get worse.
After having endured a “chaotic” and “dysfunctional” childhood, Ashley Judd underwent a 47-day program at a Texas treatment center last February in order to deal with the issues of her past, including depression, isolation and co-dependent relationships, she says.
Besides being dimwitted, she’s got the psychological problems prevalent in the Senate too. Worked for Jesse Jackson Jr. in Congress.
Judd will fit right in…
After several hours, Joe finally gave up on logic and reason, and simply told the cabinet that he could talk to plants and that they wanted water.
In counter point, I give you Fred Thompson.
Neither he nor Judd are stupid.
Just saying.