Actress Ashley Judd stumps for Obama in Kenosha

Actress Ashley Judd stumped for President Barack Obama in Kenosha on Saturday, urging local supporters of the president to share their own personal narratives as they work on the president’s behalf.

Judd kicked off an afternoon vote canvass at Obama’s Kenosha campaign office, 3020 Roosevelt Road, rallying about 50 supporters with her own story of political activism.


The Kentucky-bred actress, the respective daughter and half-sister of country music stars Naomi and Wynonna Judd, has been a champion for Democratic Party politics for years, she said.

“I’m a born rabble rouser,” Judd, 44, told the cheering audience. “I’m a hillbilly rabble rouser.”

Judd said her engagement in politics began when she was a student at the University of Kentucky, when a member of the school’s board of trustees — Happy Chandler, a onetime Major League Baseball commissioner and U.S. senator — dropped a racial epithet during a board meeting.

“I started to find out about racism within my public institution, and then I started to realize that we were funded by state tax dollars, including African-American dollars,” Judd said. “And I said, ‘No way,’ and I started joining every progressive organization on campus. I found out there’s more to do at the student center than cruise cute boys and get snacks.”

Judd went on to pursue her acting career but retained her interest in politics, earning a mid-career master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2010.

Her work on behalf of Obama this year, she said, has included campaign stops in several tossup states. In addition to Kenosha, her Wisconsin jaunt included scheduled stops in Waukesha Saturday and Madison and Portage Sunday.

As for the need to bring a personal narrative to campaigning, Judd pointed to the example of an Obama backer in Iowa who has been willing to say, in a campaign setting, “I’m living proof that a woman can conceive in rape.”

“The guts it takes to share that story is remarkable,” Judd said. “But it’s what opens minds and changes hearts.”