In what’s already been a clunky campaign filled with disjointed messages and half-baked attacks, Daniel Cameron has been stumbling through the home stretch of the governor’s race as he starts to grapple with the reality of the hardline right-wing politics and tactics that he has aligned with.
Polls indicate that Cameron, the Republican gubernatorial candidate and Kentucky’s current attorney general, has largely struggled to gain momentum against incumbent Andy Beshear as the Nov. 7 election nears, and that seems to be a catalyst for a few recent desperation moves by the challenger.
Cameron has long been a staunch supporter of Kentucky’s draconian and cruel near-total abortion ban since it went into effect via a trigger law that snapped into place after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
The current version of the law, which Cameron has repeatably defended — including during a March primary debate — does not include exceptions for rape or incest.
But, during a mid-September interview on NewsRadio 840 WHAS, he switched his stance.
“If our legislature was to bring legislation before me that provided exceptions for rape and incest, I would sign that legislation,” Cameron said during the interview. “There’s no question about that.”
“There’s no question about that.”
Come on. If there was “no question about that,” then why did he hold on to that standpoint until seven weeks before an election?
It’s not a new conversation. Republicans have been slowly chipping away at abortion rights for years.
There was even a proposed amendment in this year’s General Assembly to add exceptions for incest and rape after Kentucky’s abortion law took effect. It received a lot of public attention, but was ultimately shut down by the Republican supermajority.
Cameron likely thought that he could hedge his bets by sliding his perspective post-primary, stealing some pivotal centrist voters. But there are too many sharp journalists and activists in this state with the receipts, and they sniffed out the conflicting behavior immediately.
While he’s trying to shift an election by shifting his ideology, it’s becoming glaringly obvious that Cameron is playing games with a very serious issue.
“Either he lied about his position in order to secure a right-wing fringe group’s endorsement, or he’s lying to voters now,” Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said in a statement. “No matter which way Cameron tries to spin it, Kentuckians cannot trust him to lead our state or to create policies that impact our health care and our bodily autonomy.”
As this race has heated up, Beshear has poured pressure on Cameron’s defense of the trigger law via a series of video ads, particularly focusing on the attorney general’s initial stance against the exceptions for incest and rape.
That pressure also likely added to Cameron’s softened statements.
Of course, politicians should continue to sincerely evolve their thoughts on issues in responsible ways, but this doesn’t seem like that. He’s starting to realize his connection with extreme right-wing opinions on abortion is a political liability. And now he’s trying to revise.
And, while Cameron’s recent comments on abortion have dominated headlines, it’s not his only recent moment of conflicting comments.
Another subject of several recent news reports was how Cameron responded to the Northern Kentucky Right To Life 2023 Election Candidate Questionnaire. He pledged yes to every question, including, “Will you actively support (and if in a position to do so, sponsor and vote for) legislation which prohibits all use of local, state, federal, and/or Medicare or Medicaid funds for abortion (including chemical abortions, such as RU-486, or the so-called ‘morning after pill,’ Norplant, Depo Provera, or the so-called ‘standard birth control pill’)?”
When he was asked about the questionnaire during the WHAS interview, his response was, “I support birth control. I support contraception.”
In a statement to Louisville Public Media, Cameron said, “It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest I oppose or want to criminalize birth control or contraception. I believe in upholding the fundamental right to religious freedom. No one should be compelled to act against their religious beliefs. That includes taxpayers.”
His campaign also told Louisville Public Media in a clarification that the candidate “does not include emergency contraception or birth control in his definition of abortion.”
Cameron is clearly careless with language and careless with his opinions. And that’s likely on purpose, to say what he needs to say to get elected — and appear more empathetic — before diving right back into the hard-right think tank.
Cameron, who comes from the school of Mitch McConnell, is significantly more articulate and intelligent than some of the unpredictable alt-right mad dogs who have been elected at astonishing rates following the political rise of Donald Trump. But Cameron, like his mentor, attempts a more calculated and manipulative approach, although strategy could be collapsing.
Elections are swung on all kinds of emotions and behaviors — fear, hope, chaos, cult of personality, blatant misinformation, hard truths, apathy, record voter turnouts — but they’re rarely won on candidate desperation.
But, who really knows, though? Elections remain baffling.
What’s not baffling is that Daniel Cameron is trying to make the end of this election cycle convoluted and messy because he’s in panic mode.
