“No matter who McConnell runs against, it’s an important race and it will be covered,’’ said John Brabender, a Republican consultant who has worked on races in Kentucky. But if Judd enters the contest, Brabender said, it “will be covered not only on mainstream news, but entertainment news, and it will have fodder from everything from the “Daily Show’’ to “Saturday Night Live.’’
McConnell and the Republicans appear to be taking her seriously. American Crossroads, an independent organization directed by Republican consultant Karl Rove, aired an internet commercial asserting that Judd is a Hollywood liberal whose residence is in Tennessee, not Kentucky.
“The most compelling argument I can think of for not supporting Ashley Judd is that the race ought to be about Mitch McConnell … and not about Ashley Judd,’’ said Ernie Yanarella, a professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. “Even at this early hour, it has been apparent that outside forces are already framing Ashley Judd as little more than an actress with Hollywood liberal leanings.’’
Judd would bring a number of advantages to the race. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and earned an M.A. in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She has long been politically active and has championed such issues as the environment and reproductive rights.
An supporter of President Barack Obama, she was a major hit last September when she addressed the Ohio delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. Standing at a lectern before the delegates, she defended the 2010 health care law signed by Obama, saying that under the law “in your state alone, 640,000 children with pre-existing medical conditions cannot be denied insurance.’’
She told them that “abortion should be safe, it should be legal and it should be rare.’’ And she asserted that “if we make sex education available to boys and girls, make modern family planning available, we prevent unintended pregnancies. We make the need for abortion except in the cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother, obsolete.’’
“Even good speakers have nothing on Ashley Judd,’’ said Stephen Voss, an associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. “She brings in this huge advantage.’’
But she would be running in one of the most thoroughly Republican states in the country. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney handily defeated Obama in Kentucky last year with nearly 61 percent of the vote and the state’s two senators are both Republicans.
Brabender said Kentucky is “not Hollywood and it’s not fictional. Can she hold up in a state where it sounds like her positions are outside the mainstream of typical Kentucky families?’’
Hollywood and politics have long established links. The most famous actor to turn politician was Ronald Reagan who served two terms as president. George Murphy, a song-and-dance man in film, served one term as a U.S senator from California. Fred Grandy, who played “Gopher’’ on the TV hit “The Love Boat,’’ served four terms as a Republican member of the U.S. House.
Others, however, have found the switch from acting to politics too difficult. Wendell Corey, who played the detective in “Rear Window,’’ lost a primary race for Congress in California. Karen Morley, who starred in the MGM classic “Dinner At Eight,’’ lost a race for lieutenant governor of New York.
“A lot of people enjoy the thought of running for office, but the reality of running for office is much more difficult and very few people can live up to that task,’’ Brabender said. “This isn’t just reading from a script where they yell ‘cut’ and re-do a scene.’’
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