This article is from the archive of our partner .
Ashley Judd won't be challenging Mitch McConnell for his Senate seat next year, but a leaked audiotape shows how the McConnell campaign considered all kinds of potential attacks—including bringing up Judd's mental health issues. The tape shows campaign advisers who are almost gleeful at the prospect of facing Judd, since they would have little trouble painting her as an ultra-liberal "carpetbagger" with a host of personal, emotional problems.
In a scoop reminiscent of his work on Mitt Romney's "47 percent" tape, David Corn of Mother Jones obtained an audio recording of a McConnell campaign strategy session from February of this year. The purpose of the meeting was to review "opposition research" his team had already gathered on Judd, who was not even formally in the race. The team appears delighted at the treasure trove of material a Candidate Judd would hand to them—not just her connections to President Obama, her support for gay marriage, and her carpetbagger status, but her conflicted feelings on religion and her battles with depression.
On the tape, an unidentified aide reviews the "compilation of work" that already been been done on Judd, which he describes as "a haystack of needles, just because truly, there's such a wealth of material." As a famous actress who has spent years in the spotlight, they had dozens of interviews, blog posts, articles, and books, written by and about her to help paint a picture that most Kentuckians would probably find unflattering.