The Future is Alright

As I type, I’m on a plane flying home from Louisville, Kentucky. I’m about to land in Atlanta. I spoke last night at the University of Louisville to the McConnell Center students. During the day, I got to tour the Lousville Slugger factory and the Old Forester Distillery. I got to talk about politics. And I got to meet OJ Oleka.

Oleka is running for Kentucky Treasurer. He has the endorsement of the current Treasurer for whom he worked, also a Republican. His family hails from Nigeria. He sounds like a native of Kentucky with a Reaganite accent. His mother lives on retirement income from the state. Oleka is concerned about how ESG investment criteria undermine good rates of return. He is an American success story.

Daniel Cameron is Kentucky’s Attorney General. He won that race as one of the few people in America endorsed by both Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. Cameron is now the front runner in a three way race for the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination. One of his opponents, Kelly Craft and Ryan Quarles, are respectively the former UN Ambassador who replaced Nikki Haley and the Kentucky Agriculture Commissioners. They’re all fine people.

Cameron made news the other day with the audacious suggestion that Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, might need a state police outpost. It is something the city does not have. The Democrat Governor’s response was that to do so would undermine local law enforcement and force him to take state troopers away from other areas of the state.

It tells you all you need to know about America’s Justin Trudeau that Andy Beshear, the nepotism baby of governors, thinks he would have to deprive part of Kentucky with state police as opposed to hiring more. Also, for a man relying on Kentucky’s black voters for re-election, Beshear seems unphased that Louisville’s police are under a federal consent decree due to civil rights violations. And let’s not mention the crime.

Cameron, a straight talking conservative, is perhaps the most compelling face to take on Beshear. He’d be a black governor with an “R” after his name who supports law enforcement, is fiscally conservative, and committed to Kentucky’s socially conservative values.

Were Oleka to get elected as Kentucky Treasurer, the GOP would have two charismatic non-white conservatives helming a state that still struggles with whether it is North or South. But it wouldn’t matter. It’d be real American progress in the bluegrass state and Cameron would flip it from blue to red.

It’s a story that, were Cameron and Oleka both Democrats, would get more media attention — as would Haley and Scott both being non-white prominent candidates from South Carolina. But because, like Haley and Scott, Cameron and Oleka are conservative Republicans, the national media has largely ignored them and the Democrats hope like hell both lose.

Kentucky Republicans should strongly consider them. They’ll get two conservatives. They’ll also force a reshaping of the prevailing media narrative against Republicans without actual sacrificing Republican values to do so. They’d be great picks for the future of the GOP, and not just in Kentucky.