BY JORDAN BROOKS

jordan.brooks@middlesboronews.com

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron paid a visit to Pineville last week to meet with residents and community leaders from throughout Bell County.

A large crowd packed into the Butchers Pub upstairs room to listen to and take pictures with Cameron. Cameron’s stop in Bell County was part of his campaign tour, “Fight for Kentucky Values,” where he also made stops at Harlan, Whitesburg and Hazard.

These campaign stops are being organized in preparation for the upcoming gubernatorial election in November. Three states — Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi – will hold gubernatorial elections in 2023. According to Cameron, everyone’s eyes will be on the commonwealth and their decisions this November.

Cameron did employ a national Republican talking point during his speech by associating Beshear with a gender ideology curriculum that the attorney general asserted is gradually infiltrating educational settings. Furthermore, Cameron attributed a surge in crime rates to Beshear, echoing another widely recognized talking point of the national GOP. Notably, no mention was made of Cameron’s role as the state’s attorney general, which inherently designates him as the primary law enforcement official.

Cameron said as governor he would continue to fight to preserve the coal industry, and would fight to bring jobs back into Bell County and back into other small communities across eastern Kentucky.

“There’s a lot of hard working people here,” he said. “And we need to tap into that resource.”

Cameron said it was important for him to travel to eastern Kentucky when he did because he wanted to visit communities on the anniversary of the floods, and he wished to reinforce the message that his heart is with these communities, and he will do whatever he can to support these communities.