"Run For Senator, Ashley Judd!" Said No One. "Maybe I Will," Says Ashley Judd.
OK, fess up now. Which one of you started the Ashley-Judd-for-Senator rumor? I'm not mad, I just want to nip this one in the bud before to leads to dashed hopes and hurt feelings and Judd taking a year away from acting.
No, seriously, why is another Kentucky politician saying that Judd vs. incumbent Mitch McConnell in 2014 would be the "premier race in the country?" Is this a thing people have been talking about? This sounds like a Facebook campaign. Which means its the work of your aunts and people from high school you haven't spoken to in years but you haven't unfriended only because you like looking at photos of how fat they've gotten. Is this how political discourse is initiated in this country? (Yes.)
The groundswell for Judd has resulted in her issuing a non-denial with nothing of substance—she's speaking like an elected official already!
"I cherish Kentucky, heart and soul, and while I'm very honored by the consideration, we have just finished an election, so let's focus on coming together to keep moving America's families, and especially our kids, forward," she said.
Judd's politically minded, hosting a series of Democratic fundraisers over the years. And she's not dumb, either. She's lectured the United Nations about sex trafficking, lobbied against mountaintop removal mining, and a few years back received her Master's in Public Administration from the prestigious Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She was also in Kiss the Girls and Double Jeopardy, both of which were fantastic examples of the effective, no-frills '90s thrillers that we as a nation seem to have forgotten how to make.
Sometimes the best way to get a celebrity's name in the news is to float a made-up rumor about them, just so they can deny it. (This means you won't actually be seeing that McG-directed Star Wars film.) So maybe putting Judd's name out there now is just a bit of publicity, and if so, we'll play along. There are certainly more horrifying Hollywood names that could be floated as candidates. But the old paradox about politics still holds: the type of person who'd run for office isn't the type of person you'd want in office. So think hard about this, Ashley. Stay America's sweetheart.
Also, Judd doesn't have Kentucky residence. She'd probably need to fix that.
