The Highest Elected Teacher in Kentucky

Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman on her run for Kentucky governor, what teaching taught her about leadership, and why dogs don't bark at parked cars

There seem to be two dominant forms of political interviews in 2026: the accountability interview (drag a person through their worst moments in public and private life) and the influencer interview (pump each other up for 45 minutes and encourage everyone to like and subscribe). When I sit down to talk with someone, I want to learn something about them. I’ll take one new insight: one story they’ve not told before, one window into how they think, one moment when they seem to be thinking out loud. You don’t get that in the accountability or influencer format.

I was thinking about that as we prepared to talk with our current Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman. She is running for governor, and we’re excited. Sarah goes way back with Lt. Gov. Coleman to Emerge Kentucky (a program for Democratic women considering running for office). I’ve met her several times and like her, and I particularly like her staffers. So we were at a real risk of doing an influencer interview: “You’re awesome, no you are, ok we all are, yay.”

We thought a lot about her questions and how we could have this conversation and learn something about her. When we wrapped up, we met that mark for me. I learned about how she thinks about going from speaking for Gov. Andy Beshear to speaking for herself. I learned about how she decided when and how and why to disclose that she’d had a double mastectomy during a re-election campaign. I learned about her confidence in the face of criticism (and will be holding onto “dogs don’t bark at parked cars” for myself).

I know our audience is not primarily Kentucky-based. Hearing a woman who got tapped to be a running mate while on bus duty is potent no matter where you are. I want more than the Pinterest board of women with babies in office; Coleman talked about sweating at a podium while holding a six-month-old who’d just been vaccinated. This is the kind of interview that I want to do more of: tell me who you are and what you care about. Tell me something real about you and hear something real about me. Meet me somewhere. -Beth

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Episode Resources

• Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman (State of Kentucky)

• Jacqueline for Kentucky Website

Episode Transcript

[00:00:24] Sarah: This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

[00:00:25] Beth: This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We have a very special guest today. Kentucky’s Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman is here for her very first podcast appearance as a candidate for governor. We sit down with her in person in Louisville, and are so excited to share this wide-ranging, candid discussion with you. You’ll hear about her teaching experience, her imposter syndrome, and the very raw moments of life she’s lived while in office, like having a baby and going through a double mastectomy. And Outside of Politics, you will not believe her TV guilty pleasure.

[00:01:04] Sarah: It was shocking to me, and I know her pretty well. Thank you to everyone who voted in our Good Neighbors T-shirt design contest. I will be announcing the winner on the Good Morning news brief on Monday morning, so that will be the first place to get the news. Make sure you’re subscribed there if you’re not already. We’ll have the winning shirts available to order soon.

[00:01:22] Beth: Up next, Lieutenant Jacqueline Coleman.

[00:01:35] Sarah: Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics.  This is not your first time here.

[00:01:41] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: This is not my first time here, but this is my first podcast since I announced my run for governor of Kentucky, so thank you all for having me.

[00:01:48] Sarah: We are honored.

[00:01:49] Beth: Thank you for being here.

[00:01:50] Sarah: And we would have been offended had you chosen someone else just for the official record. Speaking of the official record, when I was getting ready for this episode, I found a letter that you wrote to your basketball players at East Jessamine when you decided to run in 2016. And it said, “Just like you, I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up. Maybe I’ll get back into coaching. Maybe I’ll be governor one day.” So what I want to know is what would Jacqueline Coleman of 2026 write in her letter today?

[00:02:19] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: First of all, I would tell my players how proud I am of them. Part of my launch last week, I had former players introduce me at different places, and it made me tear up, and I joked with them that I teared up for different reasons than I used to tear up because of them. But they’re all growing into young women with families and careers, and it’s amazing. And so I think, first, I would tell them how proud I am of them. And second, I think I would tell them to never say never because you just don’t know what opportunity is around the corner. You don’t know what that next right step could be and where it can take you, and so never say never is what I would tell them.

[00:02:58] Beth: So everyone probably knows that you are a teacher. You’ve said you’re the highest elected teacher in Kentucky. We would love to hear about a specific classroom memory that walks around the halls in Frankfort with you.

[00:03:09] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes. So I think my specific memory that definitely walks around the halls of Frankfort with me is my first year teaching at East Jessamine High School. I had a full classroom, first of all, and about three-fourths of it was boys. And they were juniors, and they were bouncing off the walls. And it was like they were so endearing and charming, and I just adored them, and also they drove me nuts. And that’s like the typical like first year class you get when you’re a first year teacher. You kind of get stuck with a classroom full of 75% boys. But they taught me patience. And you learn that you have to be, a compassionate educator, but sometimes you have to be a little tough on them too to get them to settle down and pay attention. So that is a classroom memory that I carry with me, is that first class at East Jessamine that was mainly boys.

[00:04:00] Beth: That does sound like good preparation for dealing with the Kentucky State Legislature.

[00:04:03] Sarah: That’s exactly what I was going to say. Exactly. Classroom management is a valuable skill.

[00:04:07] Beth: Three-fourths boys makes it tough occasionally.

[00:04:08] Sarah: For sure. So we’ve heard the story in Kentucky, but I want our broader audience to hear the story of you in the bus line when Governor Andy Beshear called you. Because You were a teacher. It’s not like you were running for office. It’s not like you’d served. Tell us that story.

[00:04:22] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah, so in the spring of 2018, I got a phone call from this guy named Andy Beshear, who happened to also, he was the attorney general in Kentucky at the time, and we knew each other. It was small circles. But he called and asked me if I wanted to grab a coffee with him sometime. And I thought, “Okay yeah, we can work that out.” And we kept going back and forth to try to find a time, and we never really could work it out for, at first, because I had bus duty. I was an assistant principal, and so I had to wait till the last bus left the parking lot before I could go grab a coffee with him. And so we sit down, and the whole time I’m thinking, “I wonder what he’s going to I wonder what this is about. There’s obviously something going on. I bet he’s going to run for governor, and I bet that’s what he’s going to talk to me about.” And so he starts telling me he’s going to run for governor, and I’m like, “I figured, but also I don’t know why I’m here,” and he says the first decision I have to make is who I want my running mate to be.” And he paused, and I know I had a shocked look on my face, and he said, “What? Is that not what you thought we were going to talk about today?” And I said, “No, Andy. Just left bus duty. Of course, I did not think we were going to talk about me running as your lieutenant governor.” But I think that’s a testament to the power and the diversity of what teachers can do. Still to this day am so thankful to him for that opportunity, and it was just a really interesting conversation to be a part of after just having left bus duty one day. And then I had to go home and explain to my husband “Hey, guess what?”  

[00:05:51] Sarah: That was a whole ‘nother journey. I’m sure you had those moments, though, as you moved from being a teacher to being a candidate, like that sort of first classroom moment where you were like, “Whoa, what’s going on here?” What were those like?

[00:06:04] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I was a government teacher, so the process of how to get things done and ensuring that government works for you is what I made a living doing, is teaching young people that. But I have to say, a campaign is a thing of its own, and certainly once you get inside of the system of government, that’s an interesting place to be, too. And so I do remember on the campaign, sitting through a lot of meetings with consultants and people who’d done this their whole life, and that’s all they do. Shooting the first TV commercial.

[00:06:34] Sarah: That’s a long way from bus duty.

[00:06:36] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: That is a long way from bus duty, but it was at a school. I will say that. It was at a school. And you go from that to especially as a lieutenant governor, it’s an interesting place to be because your job is to speak on behalf of someone else but not speak for someone else. And so I will credit my experience in coaching and as being an assistant principal to helping me to fit into that role in a different way. You have to be able to prove that you can lead but also know that you got to stay in your lane. And so it’s a delicate dance, and I can see how it would be difficult for some folks to do. But I can remember the first meeting I was in the governor’s office and walking in and thinking, “Oh my gosh, what am I possibly going to bring to this conversation?” The whole imposter syndrome that women have. I’m sitting around these people who have been in state government their whole life. There’s attorneys. There’s people who had led departments, and me. And what I realized really quickly is we all had our lane. Mine is education, and it was very soon after that I realized now wait a minute, I do belong here because the largest part of our state budget is public education, and I know more about that than anybody else in this room does because I’ve walked the walk. And so it’s a reminder that as odd as those new experiences may be, you’re there for a reason. Yeah. And I have to talk myself out of that imposter syndrome every day because it’s still something that I think women deal with a lot.

[00:08:03] Beth: How quickly did you feel that lane expanding, though? Because I bet you soon realized, “I have things to talk about other than just education here, too.”

[00:08:09] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I think during the campaign I was the teacher on the ticket. I was the teacher. When I became lieutenant governor, it was a little bit more like all the challenges that we face in Kentucky, I see through the lens of education. So I believe it is the solution to a lot of the challenges that we face. When we’re looking at data and statistics and spreadsheets, I don’t see numbers on a line. I see the families of the kids in my classroom. So it makes it more personal to me in that way. And so I went from being, I think, identified as a teacher to being someone who uses that experience to see the rest of the world.

[00:08:50] Sarah: Because you are inside a system in public education, but you are also in such a personal-- like even physical, the few times I’ve just subbed it’s just such a embodied experience being in a classroom, being in a school, and you have to live in both of these worlds, like the high-minded, institutional, systemic, administrative, all these different constituencies. There’s a lot of politics in being in a school, for one thing. We’re talking about how it’s relevant to politics, but politics is relevant to that, too. How do you hold both of those; the physical reality the lived experience, but also bringing that systems analysis that you have to do when you’re looking at policy and when you’re looking at laws and you’re looking at budgets?

[00:09:29] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah, so nobody succeeds in a vacuum, right? And within these systems, you need so many different parts and pieces to make it work. So the way I think about it is as a public school teacher-- I taught high school-- I had to try to connect with and teach every kid that walked through my door. I didn’t get to pick who walked through my door. And I certainly didn’t get to choose their circumstances. But I tried my best to find a way to relate to every kid in my classroom in some way. Some of those relationships were easier to build, some were a little bit more difficult, but I always made an effort because I felt like at the end of the day, even if it wasn’t overly successful, they would know that I was trying. I think the best compliment I ever got as a teacher was, “Ms. Coleman, I hate social studies, but I love your class.” It was just like, “Oh, that’s so great because you like being in here.” But I take that experience and I transfer it to this role, and I genuinely don’t care where you come from, who you are, what letter you have by your name. I see a problem and I want to solve it. And there are a lot of people who run for office or who serve, and they say, “People over politics,” and then they go out and they act very political and partisan. And I consider working with the state legislature or working with people in state government the same way as I did with the kids in my classroom. You’re different than me. I may not be able to relate to you directly, but I’m going to try. We may not see eye to eye on everything, but there’s going to be sometimes where we can break through. But it’s ultimately about relationship-building to me.

[00:11:07] Sarah: Yeah. I was thinking when you said that there’s a lot of politicians that could hear you don’t get to pick your constituents. They are who they are. They are who they are, especially statewide. That’s really important.

[00:11:15] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: It’s such a diverse group of people, geographically, culturally all of those things. To me if the most significant thing about you or the most interesting thing about you is the letter by your name, that’s a problem. To me, it’s everything else that matters.

[00:11:29] Beth: Yeah. I got a lot of good teachers in my life, and I think being the lieutenant governor would be very hard for them because they operate like CEOs in every space. You can tell. They run a classroom. It’s their place. It’s their deal. They set the tone; they set the agenda. They communicate everything important. I can imagine that this has been a frustrating experience in a lot of ways, and I wonder if stepping into your campaign for governor feels different to you. Do you feel like a return to something, or like you’re stepping into a new space, or both? How’s the experience? There’s some people you want to give grades to.

[00:12:01] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes. That is a great point. And it’s so true because especially as lieutenant governor, you are somebody who is in a little bit of a difficult situation sometimes. Because, again, I speak on behalf of someone, but not for someone. And the governor and I have different people that are around us. There are different life experiences that we have. We’re very different people, but we’re working towards the same mission. And that can have its moments, obviously. There are some stories from my colleagues around the country that are quite interesting. I feel very fortunate compared to some of those stories. But it’s one of those situations where you have to know who you are and what you bring to the table, and even try to complement the other. So I’m not Andy Beshear, but there are things that I can do that can fill maybe a void for him just the same as he does for me. And so I think finding that niche is important. It took a minute because it can be hard. But you’re right, going from running a classroom to all of a sudden you have to run something through 10 different people, for both of us to be able to go out into the world is a very different experience. I often say, “ So this is why government moves at the speed of snail.” Now I get it.

[00:13:17] Sarah: So something else happened during that campaign, which is you became a mom. This is how our friendship blossomed as I was putting you on my Pinterest board of women bringing their babies to legislative experiences and executive experiences. It’s my favorite image in government. Tell us what that was like.

[00:13:33] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. We were running in our very first campaign, and we were running against an incumbent. It’s really hard to beat an incumbent, no matter what you’re running for. And so I ran in the general election pregnant. And Andy would always joke with me that he would just be about to say, “Gosh, I’m tired,” and then he would look at me and be like, “I can’t say that. You’re doing this and you’re pregnant.” I’m like, “ You’re smart. Thank you.” But it was a unique experience, and people ask me how hard it was, and I’m like, “I don’t know.” Because that was my first pregnancy, and it was my first statewide campaign. So, to me, that’s all I knew. I didn’t know if it was hard or not. I didn’t have anything to compare either one of those experiences to, and they happened together.

[00:14:13] Sarah: I’ve done them separately. That’s hard.

[00:14:14] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes. No matter what you do. We were elected in November. We were sworn in December. I had Evelyn in February. And the pandemic started in March.

[00:14:25] Sarah: Oh, my lord.

[00:14:26] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: When you talk going from running a classroom and living your life by a schedule, and every time the bell rang, you moved, and now it’s like what in the world are we all going through together? But I will say this. You had to find silver linings in tough times. I will say this. If it weren’t for that, I would not have been able to spend near as much time with Evelyn. She probably wouldn’t have been so prominent in pictures of me at the Capitol and things like that. So it did create this opportunity that I didn’t know was going to be there. And so it came with its own set of stressors too because, as you guys remember, every two weeks we were like, “Oh, so we still can’t go anywhere. Oh, so this is getting worse instead of getting better.” And we were all isolated and uncertain and all of those things. That’s hard to do with a newborn obviously. But it did give me the opportunity to be with her more than I would’ve, and so you just kind of have to take the challenges and the wins as they come.

[00:15:22] Sarah: And you had big kids trying to navigate that too.

[00:15:24] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. It was harder with the big kids. I could control the little one, right? I was holding her in all my meetings. But so I have an adopted daughter, Emma, who is 28. She played basketball for me. And she moved into our home, and eventually we adopted her and she’s my oldest daughter now. And then I have two bonus sons, Will and Nate, who are 24 and 22, and Evelyn is six. It is the most blended family you can possibly have. Yeah.

[00:15:51] Sarah: Yeah, so you were navigating a lot. Where did you show up in a room once she was born and think, “Oh this space is not designed for people like me.”

[00:16:00] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I will tell you I think it’s from the picture that you’re talking about of me standing behind the podium. I meet women across Kentucky, and especially moms, and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh. That picture means so much to me. I’m so glad you did that.” And I’m like, “I did not do that on purpose.” No one would plan that. So here’s what happened. I took Evelyn to go get her vaccinations. Six months old, I think, is how old she was. And the plan was my husband and I were going to take her to the doctor, get her shots. I was going to take them home, and I was going to go to the Capitol for our COVID press conference which was out in the rotunda, so it’s big open space. And the doctors were running behind, all of those types of things. Evelyn reacted to these vaccines worse than any other, and she squalled and screamed and cried the whole way home to the point where I was sweating. I was stress sweating. So you guys are, like, nodding your heads.

[00:16:51] Beth: Yes. Been there.

[00:16:52] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. So I’m like, “We don’t have time to drop you off, so we’re just going to take her. You guys can just go to my office, and I’ll go to the rotunda.” We walk in the Capitol, guess who fell asleep in my arms? And we’ve been through this for 45 minutes. I cannot do anything. So I was like let’s just go sit down. So we go sit down and I’m holding her, and Chris is sitting beside me, and I can see the governor getting ready to cue me. And I’m looking at Chris and looking at the governor, and I’m like, I’m just going to try this. Because I thought, “If I hand her off, she’s going to start crying.” So I was like, “Okay, here we go.” So I just went up to the podium, and my notes were up there, and I held her, and she didn’t move. And the women that I hear from today still are just so grateful for that image. And I’m like, “I’m glad you guys are because I was stress sweating in that picture.”

[00:17:34] Beth: Yeah, it costs you a lot.

[00:17:34] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. And so but it was in that space that I thought, “Man, this just wouldn’t happen to just anybody.” But also, I wouldn’t be in this role and able to do that if it weren’t the women that came before me that blazed that trail because they would’ve never been able to have a child while in office and still be considered a servant leader who could handle the job, right?

[00:17:55] Beth: I think that’s so important. And the blended family, that’s just how a lot of Kentuckians live. You want that representation in government even though it’s hard and takes a lot from people. I wonder, so you’ve had this experience. You’ve been our lieutenant governor. What have you seen about Kentucky that you wish every Kentuckian could see?

[00:18:12] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: The goodness. We have so many challenges. There’s so much negativity out there. It’s so easy to get down about certain aspects of maybe a community or the state or just the country at large at times, right? But when we go to especially I’ll point to natural disasters. We’ve had 15 federally declared natural disasters in Kentucky since the governor and I took office. And two of the biggest in our state’s history in West Kentucky with a tornado that was on the ground. It was an EF5 for 220-something miles straight. And then we had the flooding in Eastern Kentucky that was absolutely... The houses were picked up off their foundation and floated down the road. It was two of the most devastating scenes I’ve ever witnessed. But when I went to check on a specific family or went to see how people were doing, I watched a caravan of trucks pull up with farm equipment and equipment for cleanup, and they got out of their truck and they walked up to the homeowners and they introduced themselves and said, “How can I help?”

[00:19:18] Sarah: Wow.

[00:19:18] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: And you could just see the homeowners’ sigh of relief because they were looking around thinking, “How are we ever going to do this?” We had a former state representative actually who works in our administration now in Eastern Kentucky who was literally kayaking from house to house in Eastern Kentucky, getting out of her kayak onto roofs, pulling people in with her and taking them to safety. In the dead of night. It was dark outside, and I can’t imagine how eerie that would have felt. So just those are two very, memorable examples for me. But that happened all day every day whenever I was in a place after a natural disaster. And so that was a reminder to me of nothing else matters.

[00:20:03] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:20:03] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: When you go to the partisan politics of it all and the things--

[00:20:06] Sarah: Nobody was asking what your party affiliation was.

[00:20:08] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Nobody cared.

[00:20:09] Beth: And that is honestly in much more benign situations my experience of Kentucky culture too. Where I grew up, my dad and I would go four-wheeler riding. If somebody was putting up tobacco, he would stop, and he would help until they were finished. And now when it snows, my husband takes his four-wheeler and shovels everybody’s drives out for them. You know what I mean? I just think that’s how we roll here. And I like that you highlight it because I think we forget that sometimes especially in campaigns.

[00:20:33] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes, and I also think not that it doesn’t happen in larger places, but I also think that’s the beauty of a small town. Yeah. I think we’re all three from kind of small towns, and your neighbor. And even if you don’t, you feel some sort of responsibility to show up for each other just because you share that space.

[00:20:50] Sarah: And I think it’s a little bit to the embodied experience of teaching. You’re not lieutenant governor from behind a screen. You know what I mean? Your experience of Kentucky is not what people write on Facebook. Your experience of Kentucky is in the rooms with Kentuckians, and I just think that’s really important. And I’ve got to imagine, though, you still have probably that disjointed experience of seeing what’s going on online and then experiencing actual Kentuckians in the room. Which brings me to my favorite topic that I talk to you all about, putting the teacher part and this part together. because I know you care about this for your campaign, I know we’ve talked about it a lot, which is how that’s affecting our kids. That disembodied experience of social media and that portrayal of the world and the negativity and the distraction and the numbing, and the lived experience, the embodied experience of being a human in the world. So how are you thinking about that?

[00:21:42] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. I am very worried about our kids because I think technology can be useful, and it can help us be a little bit more effective and efficient in some ways. But just like anything, too much is not a good balance, and it takes you out of that reality. I think about young girls and the issues that they have on social media with body image. We all grew up in the same time period, like late 90s, early 2000s.

[00:22:07] Sarah: The magazines were bad enough.

[00:22:09] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: That was hard enough. Yes. Now imagine it following you everywhere on social media. And there’s a reason that we have a mental health crisis in this country, and especially with young people. And so some people want to want to depend on it for everything. Some people want to just completely shut it out. I don’t think you can do either one. But I do think that the key there is for us to teach kids how to balance and what reality is versus when you can use these things and it’s beneficial, versus when you might use them and it’s actually detrimental. And I don’t know that we know that yet. That’s the challenge, is that- we’re all trying to find that way and figure that out. But everybody from my big kids who they don’t watch TV. They sit on a couch, and they watch their phone. To my six-year-old who we have had to make sure that she understands that you can only use a device for so long, and you can only do certain things on it. Because it’s that addiction of hitting those buttons and getting that dopamine hit that it’s like you just have to be ready to create some rules and some boundaries around it. I don’t know what those are, and I don’t know what’s right and what’s not, but I’m trying to figure it out.

[00:23:20] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: And then you think what if I was 12? How can they possibly know? So it’s an experiment that I think continues on. But I worry that we have such a huge reliance on it right now, especially our kids.

[00:23:32] Sarah: Yeah, and we have this new one coming, this artificial intelligence coming in classrooms with tutoring. My friend was telling me the other day her son’s in college, and one of the fellow students just took a picture of the exam, let ChatGPT fill in the answers and then just wrote in the entire exam. Got a 98.

[00:23:50] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Wow.

[00:23:51] Sarah: I just think it’s like this Wild West. I do feel like the reaction is different, which is encouraging to me because I think we’re too fresh off the social media experience. And especially, I think, not just social media, but the presence of screens in education. Like, how much of that was in the classroom when you were there?

[00:24:06] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: We were not as dependent upon it as I think we became, especially during COVID. It was more of a technique than something that you would rely on every single day. But there definitely was a push for it, right? Now that I am where I am, I see, oh, okay, so all these companies were going to all these-- now I see how it’s working behind the scenes, and what I hate about that is our kids were the experiment. But yeah I actually said in my speech when I launched my campaign for governor that we are entering an era of AI that we don’t understand before we’ve ever held these decades-old social media platforms accountable. It’s just started in New Mexico and California because it’s been proven that their design is intended to addict kids. This is a big tobacco moment.

[00:24:54] Sarah: Yep.

[00:24:54] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: This is a big pharma moment. And now we’re going to having our big tech moment. And so I tend to think that we’ve got to have some folks who are running for office and in office who are brave enough to take on big companies like this and these CEOs that are just making an ungodly amount of money off of essentially abusing our kids.

[00:25:17] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:25:17] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: We can’t let that go on.

[00:25:19] Sarah: I don’t even think money’s the right word for it anymore. I think we need a bigger word than money for what they are collecting.

[00:25:23] Beth: It’s mining. They’re just mining us for how does your brain work, what holds your attention, what keeps you on the screen. You mentioned that we’re all from smallish towns. I feel like what I’ve heard about education my whole life is that place is a barrier. That place is what we’re trying to overcome through the use of technology. We make sure that you from little Livermore, Kentucky, Beth, get something comparable to what’s happening in Lexington and Louisville. I think we’re moving into an era where place is a distinct advantage where the ability to understand your place and its history and its resources and its physical landscape is a superpower. But I don’t think we’re doing much to tap into that right now. So how do you talk about that? You’re on the national stage a lot. I’m sure people see Kentucky as a place, as an obstacle instead of an asset. How do we flip that dynamic through policy?

[00:26:27] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah, I would say this, and I’ll tie this back to coaching as well, because I think about as a basketball coach, I built one program from the ground up. And so I recognize that while you’re looking down this tunnel and that light at the end of the tunnel seems like a million miles away, you have to put one foot in front of the other. You have to get a little bit better every day, right? And it seems like it takes forever. You face a lot of setbacks. You get frustrated. Sometimes you lose hope. But as long as you walk in the next day and you think, “Okay, we’ve got two hours to get better today,” that’s what you’re up against; is you the day before. But I’ve also been a coach of a team that I got to take to the Sweet 16, and so what I also recognized was I couldn’t allow players that were as talented as they were to become complacent, or they would never live up to their potential. So they had to get better every day, too. That looked different in one place than in the other. And so whether you’re talking about the most rural places in Kentucky or the biggest cities, there are challenges. And I will tell you this: they’re not all that different. When you look at whether it’s the eastern part of Kentucky and the mountains or the west end of Louisville. It looks completely different in one area than it does in the other, but if you ask them what their challenges are, they’ll tell you the same thing. And so not to say that the solutions are the same because they’re in different places, but I think it’s a reminder if you take an issue like affordable housing. I’ll give you this example. No matter where I go, whether I’m in Livermore or Louisville, that is the number one issue that local folks want to talk to me about. Now, in small communities, it’s because they don’t have a lot of financial ability. There’s lots of land. There’s lots of possibility. People want to live there because they want to raise a family there, but there’s just not a lot of financial resources, right? You go to Louisville, and there’s all kinds of financial resources but they don’t have the land, or they don’t have the room, or there’s too much maybe local bureaucracy around building. And so you see how the two issues in two different places maybe sound the same but don’t look the same. And so it truly is, to me, about going to every place that you can and sitting down and listening. Because for so long we’ve just had so many folks who waltz in, do a press conference, pretend like they have all the answers, and then leave town. And there’s just nothing good that comes from that. And so I wouldn’t know about-

[00:28:54] Sarah: what comes from that is cynicism.

[00:28:55] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes. So I wouldn’t know about the details of the affordable housing crisis in rural Kentucky versus urban Kentucky if I didn’t go and listen in these places and help to try to solve those problems.

[00:29:07] Beth: I feel like that’s so important because so much of what our current legislature has done, to me reads like model legislation that’s been drafted by interest groups for wherever, for generic state in the United States, right? And I think, who is this for in Kentucky? How does this address challenges that we actually have on the ground here?

[00:29:25] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: That is really frustrating to me, too, because again you go back to being a public servant, and there are some folks who either get an ounce of that power and feel like they can do anything and they don’t have to be held accountable. And then there are people who’ve been there for a really long time, who have lost touch with what’s really going on in communities, and none of those things serve the families that you’re actually supposed to be serving.

[00:29:50] Beth: It also just feels lazy. Write your own bill.

[00:29:52] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes.

[00:29:52] Beth: Come on.

[00:29:53] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes.

[00:29:54] Sarah: Okay, so we talked about the experience after your first swearing in. You had a very different experience after your second swearing in. Still embodied, I would imagine. So tell our listeners about that experience.

[00:30:06] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. Andy and I were running for re-election. This was in the ‘23 campaign, and I was 40. And I’m not a good person about going to the doctor or doing any of the things I’m supposed to be doing, I avoid it. That’s how I am. But I have a pretty serious history of breast cancer in my family moms, aunts, grandmothers, cousins. It’s just there. And so I was aware of that and knew that I’m going to have to make sure I stay on top of this. And so at 40, like I’m supposed to, I went and I got my very first mammogram. It was in September. Our election was in November. And I got some raised eyebrows. So I had to go back.

[00:30:46] Beth: During the mammogram?

[00:30:48] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah.

[00:30:48] Sarah: They’re supposed to keep a straight face.

[00:30:50] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I know. I’m good at reading people, Sarah. I try to be good at reading people. And they called me back in and they said, “It’s probably nothing. You don’t have a baseline test, so maybe it’s...” And I just knew. I just knew. And I was like, okay. So I go back for a more invasive exam. Now we need you to come back and do a biopsy. So I go back. So all of this is happening in September and October, okay? And at the end of October, we started our bus tour around Kentucky, and I got to give the governor some credit for this because I told him, I said, “I don’t have an answer yet, but I’m concerned about where this is going.”

[00:31:23] Sarah: And Evelyn is how old?

[00:31:25] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: She would’ve been two. Though which made it a whole nother layer to this. And he said, “Listen, I can handle the bus tour. This is nothing I can’t not do on my own, and you need to take care of yourself.” And I really appreciated that, but I was also like I kind of also need this distraction. I’m going to be honest with you. And after the biopsy, I got called in, and it was like we can do this or this. And I want you to know that between the last of that biopsy, that last appointment, and meeting with the doctor to know what I could do, was probably the most stressful time I’ve ever had because I just want answers. I just want to know what is wrong and what can I do about it. And again, I go home, and there’s a two-year-old running around the house, and I’m like, “The people that get this news and still have to go to the grocery and still have to take the kids to school and still have to do their job, and it’s in the back of their mind the whole time, I just don’t understand how people manage that.” And it was hard. So ultimately, I was given the option and decided to be as aggressive as possible. I kept it completely under wraps the entire campaign because I thought, that is all we need is a distraction. And I also didn’t have the answers yet, so I didn’t want to give people the news and not have a solution. We got inaugurated in December, and the next week I underwent a double mastectomy. And once I was through and we all knew everything was okay, that’s when I made sure everybody would be able to hear the news. And I was one of the lucky ones. I caught it early. I was aggressive and wanted to make sure I was around for Evelyn. But also the outpouring of stories that I heard from women, not just across Kentucky, but across the country, who heard the news and said, “I’m a breast cancer survivor of seven years. I am of 10 years. I just got diagnosed last year. I signed up for my first mammogram because of what you said.” Oh my gosh. I had a friend quit smoking because of it.” It’s just a reminder of the community that you can build when you are willing to be open enough about something that’s hard to talk about. I was never sure how I was going to talk about it, or if I was. But then I thought When I hand out this trophy at the Oaks, and we do the breast cancer survivor parade, I want those women to know that I’ve been through a similar situation as them. Not the same but similar, and that was always important to me.

[00:33:49] Beth: That decision-making as a public official seems very hard to me. To know what to share, when to share it, how to share it. To what extent do people feel entitled to know about what’s going on with you. And what is responsible on your end. So how do you think about that?

[00:34:04] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Really had to sit down and think through what is it that people need to know, and what is it that I want to maybe keep between myself and my family. And so I didn’t share a whole lot of details, like medical details along the way. But I shared a timeline and my decision-making. because I think that may help other people,. And that’s what ultimately I decided to do. But you’re right, it is tough because I just wanted to be able to tell people once I knew I was okay.

[00:34:31] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:34:32] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: If I had to tell the state before I had an answer, I would’ve never slept. So I just needed to fix it. That’s how I felt. I need to fix this, and then I’m going to share with you so that you can learn from it, and that’s kind of the mentality that I took from it. But I never had anybody press even the media. They would ask before they would do an interview, they’d be like, “Okay, listen, if there’s anything you don’t want to answer, you just tell us you don’t want to answer it.” And I didn’t have to do that. So it all went the way that I think it was supposed to, even though I felt like I had no idea what I was doing along the way. I don’t know how anybody could know what they would feel like that.

[00:35:05] Sarah: What sets my hair on fire is when you hear those stories from Europe where they’re like, they get the results, they walk them down the hall for the biopsy, and then they have the results, and i’m like why can’t we have that? Why do people have to hang out for weeks trying to figure out what’s going to happen? It’s so stressful.

[00:35:17] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: This was my third appointment, and I walk in a room and they’ve got you sitting in this secondary waiting room with all of the patients. The number of women sitting in that room blew my mind. And all of those, all of us were there for follow-up appointments. That was not the first.

[00:35:36] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:35:36] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: We had been told something could be wrong. And I just remember looking around that waiting room and thinking, “Oh, my gosh, I cannot believe all day, every day, this is what women are dealing with in the back of their mind. Or patients of any kind are dealing with in the back of their mind on top of everything else they have to deal with.” It was not that I have ever not felt compassion for patients, but that gave me a sense of empathy I would’ve never had otherwise.

[00:36:01] Beth: So you’ve been living this very real life while you’ve been the lieutenant-governor.

[00:36:04] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes, I have.

[00:36:05] Sarah: Very embodied. That’s our thing, very embodied life.

[00:36:07] Beth: A lot of real life facing the kinds of challenges that regular people have all day, every day. Why do you want to be the governor?

[00:36:16] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: That’s easy after all this. I thought about it a lot as lieutenant governor, and I obviously have a unique vantage point, both as an educator, but as lieutenant governor, and someone who was a part of an entire administration for two terms, two statewide campaigns. And ultimately, I think we make things more difficult than they need to be sometimes. But it’s very simple for me. I want to be the next governor of Kentucky because I believe that every Kentuckian, no matter their ZIP code, deserves a fair shot at a better tomorrow. One that’s better than today, not one that’s perfect or one that solves every problem in the world. But it’s a chance for us to get better tomorrow than we were today, especially our kids and our grandkids. because if we’re not out here working for them and fighting for them every day, what are we doing?

[00:37:01] Sarah: Yeah. Evelyn’s old enough to know what you do now. What do you tell her about all this?

[00:37:05] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Here’s a funny story. So she was at the launch with me. So after that I got in the car and I went to Paducah, and my parents took Evelyn to school. And when she got to school, she told her teacher that her mommy was running for president. Of course, her teacher knew that wasn’t true. She knew what I was doing. But it was just so funny because I thought maybe we need to go over some details with her about this.

[00:37:27] Sarah: Pull out some of those little lesson plans.

[00:37:29] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yes. I don’t know that she really truly understands. I think she recognizes that mommy has a very public job. And she’s a very private kid. When we put her in sports and stuff, she doesn’t like anybody looking at her.

[00:37:41] Sarah: That’s hilarious

[00:37:42] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: it’s a very funny thing. She gets embarrassed very easily. But yeah she’s kind of figuring out that mom’s doing something that involves the word governor. But also she’s known Andy her whole life.

[00:37:52] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:37:52] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: He’s Andy. She’ll run in the office and be like, “Andy.” And there’s all these adults in the hallway that are scared to talk to him. So in that sense, she has no fear.

[00:38:01] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:38:01] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: But it’s got to be a weird life for her, that she’ll look back on one day and go, “Oh yeah, that’s what was going on.”

[00:38:07] Beth: When you think about what you want for the state, I love that vision. I also can imagine, though, I feel this way about politics. I hope somebody else can get us there because it’s such a mean, tortured, frustrating process. And I’ve watched some of the reaction to your announcement. They’re already rolling out; the sexist, mean dismissive remarks. So why you? What is within you that you think, “I’m the person to bring this vision to life, and I’m willing to endure the cost of that.”

[00:38:37] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. So what I’ll say first about the negative comments, from the other side, usually men, is dogs don’t bark at parked cars. So there is that. But yeah, again, I think Kentucky and Americans in general, are looking for a fresh perspective of someone that has lived a “normal life,” and walked in their shoes, and understands what they’re going through, and maybe even have been through it with them, right? Again, I go back to teaching, I go back to coaching. You are as much a member of that community and a leader in that community as elected officials are. My players were calling me in the middle of the night when they needed something, not the mayor. The families that struggled would have sidebar conversations with me, not the superintendent. And so it’s a very personal place to be. You still have to be a leader, and you still have to be able to connect with people. You have to work with people whether you like them or they like you or not. It’s your job. And so I honestly think for the ugly politics side of it, that’s why it’s kind of water off a duck’s back for me. I credit it to coaching because I’m like, if you have to go into a job every day, and there are people who pay $5 to come sit in a chair and watch you do that job, and then they’re yelling at you at the back of your head while you’re doing that job, all of a sudden the insults don’t matter. You just stay focused on what you’re supposed to stay focused on. Yeah. And so I think that’s why the politics doesn’t bother me. I don’t have any interest in being a part of it. I don’t like to be treated that way. I don’t plan on treating anybody else that way. But it may take somebody like a, I don’t know, a mom of a six-year-old to put these people in their place.

[00:40:20] Sarah: What do you say to the people who trot out the line, “I just don’t think Kentucky’s ready for a woman”? Do you first educate them on Martha Layne Collins or what?

[00:40:28] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: What I would say is that question was asked and answered 40 years ago.

[00:40:31] Sarah: Yeah. That’s such a good answer. I think you’re in a unique position, and I wonder how you think about this because the administrations have been popular, but not perfect. So how do you think about when people say, “Oh is this just a continuation? Is this more of the same?” What would you change? What’s your unique observation? Particularly I think about with working with a legislator that just loves to strip the power away more and more every year.

[00:40:54] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. I would say this. I think the next administration should be what Kentuckians need. And so for the things that are working, the job creation, the economic development, the focus that we’ve had on where families are, I think it’s something we absolutely have to continue on. Are there things that may need a fresh look or may need a different perspective? Sure. And I don’t think that anyone would agree with that because no administration can do everything, and certainly no administration can do everything perfectly. And so we focused on what we were able to get done, and there may be other things that as I listen to Kentuckians along the way really bubble up as an issue that we need a newfound focus on, and that’s why I think it’s so important to show up and listen and deliver results for people and make sure that you are the kind of representation that is reflective of them, not adversarial to them.

[00:41:48] Beth: When you think of education as your primary lens on Kentucky’s problems, what’s one thing that you would love to see during your term change in our educational systems in Kentucky?

[00:42:00] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I would Love to see us finally deliver on teacher raises. Here’s the thing. We’ve delivered on raises for law enforcement, state employees, and social workers. All of those are well-deserved, long overdue, right? The only group that we included raises for in our budget that got taken out were educators, and I think not only is that disrespectful, but I think it is a deterrent for young people who might want to enter the profession. Now, I did not become a teacher because I thought I was going to be rich at all. However, I do think there is something to be said about showing people that you value their work because the reason that we raised salaries for social workers and state employees and law enforcement is because we saw the numbers dwindling. Guess what happened after we did that. All of a sudden, we’re filling state police classes. All of a sudden we’ve got more social workers that are hired. All of a sudden we’ve got competitive applications for state employee positions. So it works. And if it can work for them, then it can work for educators as well.

[00:43:05] Sarah: And not for nothing, we’ve asked teachers to become police officers and social workers and bureaucrats.

[00:43:10] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Thank you. Yes. That’s a great point.

[00:43:11] Sarah: We have expanded that job and expanded that job. I’m sure you experienced it in the school where it’s just you’re asked more and more, to do more and more. So you should get paid more. We’re going to take a hard turn as we always do on Pantsuit Politics, and I know you know that because you listen.

[00:43:25] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I do. I am an avid listener. Yes.

[00:43:27] Sarah: Yes. We’re going to talk about Outside of Politics. We talked to you about what you wanted to share. You shared a truly shocking- We both went, “Ugh.” Tell the good people your guilty reality show pleasure.

[00:43:45] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. My guilty reality show pleasure is a long one, and I’ve been with this family through two networks now. And I’m with them because I’m just invested now in in the third generation of this family. But it is Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

[00:44:01] Sarah: I have never seen a single episode.

[00:44:03] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I don’t know that I’ve missed one. But here’s the thing. It is like you guys know when you’re watching reality TV, sometimes you’re doing two or three other things and you need something in the background.

[00:44:13] Sarah: It’s like they’re your roommates.

[00:44:14] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: That’s a good way to say that. Yeah. And so it’s more of that than it is being just heavily invested in what is happening in this episode, but I do think it’s fascinating. It’s a fascinating world.

[00:44:23] Beth: Tell me your Kardashian sister power ranking.

[00:44:26] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: What do you mean power ranking? Who’s my favorite?

[00:44:29] Beth: You could do favorite or just who do you think is the sharpest businesswoman of the bunch? Because they’re businesswomen, right?

[00:44:34] Sarah: They are businesswomen.

[00:44:34] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: They are. Yeah. I think the sharpest business woman got to be Kim.

[00:44:37] Sarah: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.

[00:44:38] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: She’s like a mogul.

[00:44:40] Sarah: Yeah. Extraordinaire. I don’t know about those younger ones with the makeup and the Kylie. They’re coming up.

[00:44:44] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Kylie is like a little Kim junior, I think. But Khloe’s my favorite.

[00:44:48] Beth: Okay. Why is Khloe your favorite?

[00:44:49] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Because she’s just so funny, and I feel like she’s a genuinely good person. She is fun and seems like she’s such a good mom, and she’s there with her kids all the time, and she tries to be a good sister and daughter. And I just think she’s fun.

[00:45:00] Sarah: I love it.

[00:45:00] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I know.

[00:45:01] Sarah: You are a dedicated viewer. You also told us you’ve watched The View since you were 16 years old and you’re in.

[00:45:07] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: I’m in. I’ve watched The View since it came on when I was little. And I want you two to think about this because this involves you, too. So I grew up in a small town. I was raised by my dad, and all of a sudden this show comes on TV where I get to hear the things that are going on in the world, and I get to hear the perspective of different women. And all of a sudden I started looking to what their opinion was or what their take on something was, or to hear a take that was different than mine, right? And so that was very powerful for me. But you guys are that in this podcast space. So remember that you guys have come from different places with different backgrounds, and your voice and the things that you talk about and the way that you talk about it, whether people agree with everything you say or not, is impactful. It really is.

[00:45:57] Sarah:  You know who mine were? Mine were the Sugarbaker sisters.

[00:46:01] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Oh, absolutely. You are Julia.

[00:46:04] Sarah: Thank you. You know she was conservative in real life. It was a trade-off. If she had to do a liberal tirade, they gave her a solo. She got to sing. That was like the trade-off. Dixie Carter’s trade-off.

[00:46:15] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. That’s amazing. I did not know that.

[00:46:16] Sarah: Yes. And I cried about it one time on the show when we were talking about the treatment of CBS News of Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and all this stuff. because I thought like it did, it gave me an example of like I could care about politics. And it was like Southern women who loved like beautiful things and life and all the things I loved, but also had some really strong opinions. That show was doing like the AIDS crisis and all this stuff way before anybody else. And it was just a powerful example of I can be a woman and I can be in this area that has traditionally belonged to men, and I can have opinions, and they can be forceful, and that’s fine. And it was a really powerful example. Yeah.

[00:46:52] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. What about you, Beth?

[00:46:53] Beth: It was a good one. I watched a lot of Golden Girls and Designing Women, for sure. I loved A Different World very much. I loved Just the Ten of Us, a whole bunch of sisters on that show who liked to sing.

[00:47:02] Sarah: Weren’t you a Murphy Brown person?

[00:47:03] Beth: I watched Murphy Brown. Look, we watched a lot of TV in my house growing up. We really did. I think in terms of somebody that I admired, it was like Diane Sawyer. My parents loved news and had news on all the time. And knowing that she’s from Kentucky and like here she is and everybody takes her seriously. I think that’s what I have always wanted. I have always desired to be taken seriously the way that Diane Sawyer was taken seriously.

[00:47:24] Sarah: Do y’all remember when they all came to Murphy Brown’s shower? Does anybody remember this episode? She had a baby shower, and all the other like real-life newswomen came to the baby shower. I still remember it.

[00:47:32] Beth: Aw. That’s very fun.

[00:47:32] Sarah: Yeah. Mine was obviously also Oprah. Oprah raised me. I call her my second mother. I watched her every day at 4:00. And again, and I think about her, I think I learned listening from her watching that show. As a part of Pantsuit Politics and understanding that like exactly what you were talking about, being in the rooms. People want to be heard. And when you listen, you learn a lot. You learn so much. It’s the teacher to student kind of transition. And I think that so many politicians they are just waiting for their opportunity to talk but I’ve never felt that way with you. I Think you do listen to learn, and I think you’re going to be a great governor. Yeah.

[00:48:04] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And thank you guys for having me.

[00:48:07] Beth: Thank you for doing your debut gubernatorial campaign podcast with us. We hope that it won’t be the last time that we chat with you.

[00:48:12] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Hopefully not.

[00:48:12] Beth: And I would like to say I always like to shout out the teams of people who make things happen. And you do have my favorite team in politics. Which I think says a lot. It’s important to have a nice team. Yes. I cannot say that about everyone we work with.

[00:48:22] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Yeah. I know. I get that.

[00:48:23] Beth: You are my favorite people.

[00:48:24] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: Thank you.

[00:48:24] Sarah: And thank you to the awesome team at La Land Studios, and Sage for helping us put all this together. We really appreciate it. Yeah.

[00:48:30] Beth: Yeah. And thanks to all of you for listening.

[00:48:32] Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman: All right. Thanks, everybody.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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