transcript of former Gov Steve Beshear’s rebuttal:

I am Steve Beshear.

I was Governor of Kentucky from 2007 to 2015. Now, I’m a private citizen. I’m here in Lexington, Kentucky, some 400 miles from Washington at a diner with some neighbors - Democrats and Republicans -where we just watched the president’s address. I am a proud Democrat, but first and foremost, I am a proud Republican, and Democrat and mostly, American. And like many of you, I am worried about the future of this nation.

Look, I grew up in Kentucky, in a small town called Dawson Springs. My dad and granddad were Baptist preachers. My family owned a funeral home and my wife Jane and I have been married for almost 50 years. I became governor at the start of the global recession and after eight years, we left things a lot better than we found them.

By being fiscally responsible, I even cut my own pay. We balanced our budget and turned deficits into surpluses without raising taxes. We cut our unemployment rate in half. We made huge gains in high school graduation rates and we found health coverage for over half a million Kentuckians.

We did that through trust and mutual respect. I listened. And I built partnerships with business leaders and with Republicans in our legislature. We put people first and politics second. The America I love allowed the small-town preacher’s kid to be elected governor. And it taught me to embrace people who are different from me, not vilify them. The America I love has always been about looking forward, not backward. About working together to find solutions, regardless of party instead of allowing our differences to divide us and hold us back.

the rest at:
wfpl.org