You’d think a former governor and candidate for president, and a man of the cloth to boot, would be respectful of the rights of his fellow citizens, even those who don’t see eye-to-eye with him on the issues of the day.
But as Ohioans prepared to vote on an anti-union ballot initiative, MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow spotlighted an ugly bit of voter disrespect by former Arkansas Gov. and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, now a Fox News host and commentator as well as an ordained Baptist minister.
Invited into the Buckeye State last month to speak on behalf of Senate Bill 5, which essentially allows state and local governments to block collective bargaining agreements with public workers, Huckabee urged members of at least one audience to sound out their friends on the issue.
And if those friends are planning to vote against the law, “well, you just make sure that they don’t go vote,” Huckabee suggested. “Let the air out of their tires on election day. Tell them the election has been moved to a different date. That’s up to you how you creatively get the job done.”
Huckabee’s remarks drew laughter and perhaps they were made in jest. But with many of his fellow Republicans around the country working to depress voter turnouts, most often by imposing identification requirements that would keep thousands of qualified voters from exercising their rights, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that Huckabee was sowing a bit of Election Day mischief.
Indeed, as Ohions voted today, news outlets reported that a telemarketing firm employed by supporters of the anti-union law was using one of the tactics Huckabee suggested, placing automated calls urging voters to get to the polls “tomorrow.” A spokesman for the American Future Fund insisted that the calls resulted from an “unintentional mistake by the telemarketer.”
Sure they did!