McConnell had polio as a child and finds back-slapping painful, so Chao stepped in to hug constituents instead.

“She listens very actively. She really pays attention and remembers details about people,” Kelly Westwood, director of the Kenton County Republican Women’s Caucus, told Time in 2014. “She doesn’t see them for months and then she says, ‘I know you sprained your arm, how are you doing?’ Or, ‘How are you? [your] Is an offer going to be presented to the city council? “She remembers everything.”

Chao has also starred in campaign ads defending McConnell’s record on women’s issues. In a 2014 campaign ad, he praised McConnell as a co-sponsor of the original 1991 Violence Against Women Act, even though, as Talking Points Memo noted, McConnell voted against the final legislation in 1993 and its reauthorizations in 2012 and 2013.