Republican nominee for Kentucky governor Daniel Cameron hosted a “Moms for Cameron” event in Bowling Green on Wednesday, to criticize incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and veto of an anti-trans bill that passed into law earlier this year.
The event featured Cameron’s wife, Makenze, and Kelley Paul, wife of Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul. The group honed in on measures that kept students in remote learning during the first years of the pandemic and Beshear’s opposition to Senate Bill 150, which bans medically accepted treatments like hormone therapy and puberty blockers, and creates restrictions for how educators talk about gender and sexuality in the classroom.
During the event, Makenze Cameron, a former educator, said her husband would not be “silent on these issues” if he were elected governor.
“Andy Beshear is not advocating for our parents or for our students because he is afraid of the far left of his party,” she said. “As a teacher, I would do what I could to uphold the law but I would also make sure that students felt valued and safe and secure no matter what.”
Last week Beshear said Cameron’s focus on LGBTQ issues has “taken this race to the gutter.” A recent poll by the Public Policy Polling, a Democratic Party-affiliated firm, showed Beshear with an 8 percentage point advantage over Cameron ahead of the November election.
Cameron and organizations supporting his campaign have attacked Beshear for vetoing the anti-trans bill throughout the race, though a January poll showed a majority of Kentucky voters opposed to restrictions on gender-affirming care included in the measure.
Cameron, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, is finishing his first term as Kentucky’s attorney general and is challenging Beshear after nearly four years of court battles between the two offices.
Both candidates unveiled plans to improve education this week, with Cameron focusing on student “learning loss,” behavior problems and low test scores since the onset of the pandemic.
During the news conference, Cameron criticized Beshear's recommendation schools hold classes remotely during the first years of the pandemic, in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“I’m going to be a governor who is going to do everything I possibly can to catch our kids up on the learning loss caused by Andy Beshear,” he said.
Beshear has defended the recommendations, saying many of the issues existed before the pandemic. He offered his own education budget proposal that includes across-the-board school staff raises, universal pre-kindergarten and fully funded student transportation.
Kelley Paul said that Beshear’s policies sowed division as parents and politicians battled over public health policies
“It became so politicized, because of this drunk-with-power tyrant that was trying to tell everyone what to do,” she said. “If you dared to question, if you dared to ask for transparency or anything to do with COVID, you were labeled a conspiracy theorist or a fanatic or a terrorist.”
Paul’s husband, Sen. Rand Paul, has been one of the nation’s most prominent critics of coronavirus restrictions, often putting him out of step with public health experts.
