Former speculated-possible-savior of the Republican Party Mike Huckabee was in Ohio over the weekend, drumming up support for referendum that seeks to strip the collective bargaining rights of public workers while also making them pay at least 15 percent of their health care costs.
However, his drumming-up-support muscle is maybe a little tight these days…
“Make a list… Call them and ask them, ‘Are you going to vote on Issue 2 and are you going to vote for it?’ If they say no, well, you just make sure that they don’t go vote. 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.”
Okay, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is (an attempt at) a joke. But, that said, if any person who ever voted for a Democrat ever got within a 70-yard radius of a microphone and made a joke even slightly similar to that one, Andrew Breitbart would spend a long weekend foaming at the mouth in the video bay attempting to edit down footage of the guy into something that made him look like he murdered Ronald Reagan, and James O’Keefe would be trying to seduce him in front of a hidden camera with a salame.
And, while we’re on the subject, maybe voter disenfranchisement is not the best subject for jocularity considering the accusations that Ohio Republicans are currently engaging in active attempts to disenfranchise voters via the state’s legislative body…
The Brennan Center also pointed toward new laws in Maine to eliminate registration on election day, along with Ohio’s new law eliminating voter registration during the state’s week-long early voting period. The laws come at the same time that Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia have adopted laws reducing local early voting periods as well.
The Ohio bill, signed in July by Gov. John Kasich (R), also includes provisions blocking county election officials from mailing absentee ballot applications to all voters and prepaying postage on absentee ballots, both common practice in Democratic Franklin and Cuyahoga counties. The Ohio law has received vocal opposition from Democratic groups, with a petition coming in last week to force a 2012 referendum to overturn the law.
Still, though. Funny joke.