How would the world not be at least somewhat improved if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the blustery, Obama-hating Republican Senator from Kentucky, were to be defeated by Ashley Judd in next year’s election? Trip Gabriel‘s 2.15 N.Y. Times story (“Don’t Rule Out Ashley Judd as a Potential Senator”) says Judd is probably going to run against McConnell.

“I would actually be surprised if she didn’t run right now,” Kentucky Democratic Representative John Yarmuth tells Gabriel. “She’s done everything a serious candidate would do.”

Every time I watch video of the 70 year-old McConnell he looks and sounds like a gruff obstructionist — a corroded old-fart reactionary who supports entrenched interests and all the plodding ways that seem to get in the way of new ideas and remedies. Judd, 44, is a liberal Democrat who hails from Kentucky. Whatever she might not know about being a Senator would be more than counter-balanced by the fact that she’s not McConnell.

Judd was great in that one scene in Heat when she saves Val Kilmer with a subtle wave of her hand.

Random voter comments about Judd:

“‘She may be a little too liberal for me,’ said Janice Taylor, a 71-year-old retiree. But neither [is] she a fan of Mr. McConnell’s. ‘I’ve got tired of him. He’s always against everything.’

“Republican Perry Dalton, 67, who retired from the AK Steel plant in Ashland, says he likes Ms. Judd because she was not a typical politician. ‘I know she wants to come back to help her state, her community, just from her heart,’ says Mr. Dalton, holding the hand of a granddaughter before a ride on an electric indoor train at the Town Center mall. ‘I know she’s more liberal than me. But honesty is more important to me than anything.’

Joan Christian, 42, a hospital technician, says she previously voted for Mr. McConnell but would not rule out Ms. Judd even because of her current residence out of state. ‘I think she’s as qualified as anyone. She was an educated professional woman before she was an actress.'”