Ashley Judd May Just Be a Pawn In the Political Game

Why do we care whether Ashley Judd decides to run against Kentucky Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014? Duh: she’s a celebrity, and we care more about what celebs do even if they’re “just like us,” which they are not.

That’s exactly why NY Mag‘s Jonathan Chait doesn’t want Ashley to run; he says it’s just a ploy to raise more money for Democrats:

It is true that some Democrats in Kentucky have talked up a Judd candidacy. I think the answer here is to listen very carefully to what these Democrats are saying. One Democrat, speaking to the Times, “dismissed concerns that Ms. Judd would be a liability. On the contrary, he said, she would neutralize Mr. McConnell’s fund-raising advantage and energize opposition.”

Let me translate this. Democrats are going to lose the Senate race pretty much regardless. But Ashley Judd would raise a ton of money across the country and spend it bolstering turnout across the state, which would help other Democrats, most of whom would be distancing themselves from Judd like she was George Clooney. You know Ashley Judd’s evil husband in Double Jeopardy, who seduced her and then exploited her for an insurance scam? The campaign to lure her to run is kind of like that.

Ok, sure. But what’s the problem? Judd gets a platform — hopefully for more feminist manifestos — Democrats raise money, and Republicans waste time on attack ads. (They’ve already made one and she hasn’t even decided to run yet.) Sounds pretty win-win to us.