Ashley Judd's Real Power Against Mitch McConnell

National analpundits are all atwitter over the prospect of Ashley Judd challenging Mitch McConnell in his Senate re-election race in 2014.

But what those articles miss is Judd's biggest draw as a statewide candidate:  she is well-known and nearly universally beloved as the most famous passionate fan of the Cats - that's the University of Kentucky's men's basketball team, the 12-time-Champion Wildcats, to you heathens.

Former Agriculture Commissioner Ritchie Farmer, who gives the distinct impression of being severely mentally deficient, won statewide office twice on the sole qualification (besides his misleading but convenient last name) of being a former member of an NCCA-title-winning Wildcats team.

Granted, he lost his bid for the Lt. Governor's job, but that was due to the consequences of eight years of gob-smacking stupidity coming back to bite him in the ass. Also his failure to change his name to "Richie Lieutenant Governor."

Judd nearly matches Ritchie's one vote-getting positive and is his polar opposite on all his negatives: she's smart, highly-educated, well-informed on issues, confident and well-spoken.

If anybody can make Kentuckians vote an unabashed liberal into statewide office, Judd can.
 
Aviva Shen at Think Progress:

Rumors that film star Ashley Judd is considering a run for Senate in her native Kentucky are solidifying. Politico reported Tuesday that Judd has spoken to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and a Democratic pollster about a possible challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Judd, an unabashed progressive activist, attended the Democratic National Convention this year as a delegate from Tennessee, where she currently lives. Should she decide to run, it won’t be difficult to determine where she stands on crucial policy issues. Here are just a few examples:

• Women’s health. Judd has been an outspoken advocate for women’s health groups NARAL Pro-Choice and Planned Parenthood. As she marveled in May, “It’s remarkable to me that I would be having conversations with my peers and the younger cohort about access to reproductive health. That’s the same conversation I have with girls and women in Bangladesh. It’s the same conversation I have in Cambodia and Madagascar. And here we are in America in 2010, talking about whether or not modern family planning is useful. I mean I find that extraordinary.”
• Equal pay for women. The film star has talked many times about the importance of equal pay legislation such as the Lilly Ledbetter Act:
• Fighting the coal industry. The eighth-generation Kentucky native spoke at a rally against mountaintop removal coal-mining, calling it a “scourge” and a “tragedy” that has devastated the state’s natural resources:
• Climate change. Judd is firmly against off-shore oil drilling and testified to a House subcomittee on the benefits of cap and trade legislation. She noted on the red carpet that she specifically supports, “designating 5 percent of the revenue generated by cap and trade to help ameliorate and offset the damage global climate change is doing to different environmental systems.”
• Equal marriage rights. Judd praised President Obama at the DNC for embracing same-sex marriage rights, saying she was “extremely proud” because he was “displaying his values and his belief in equality.”
• Obamacare. At the DNC she extolled the Affordable Care Act as having helped 350,000 Tennessean families with pre-existing conditions, while 60,000 young people are now covered under their parents’ insurance.

I don't know if Ashley Judd can beat Mitch McConnell, but I do know this:  no other Kentucky Democrat can.