Stu Soffer of White Hall, a Republican election commissioner in both Jefferson County and for the state, provides insight to what the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity has been up to with mailings to Arkansas voters.
He also shared his tart response to the mailing he received.
Who votes may be public information but that does not give you the right to attempt to intimidate voters by sending a Voter History Report Card. I want to immediately be removed from your mailing list and want you to clearly understand I don’t give a rats ass if you “leave the box blank if I do not vote” in this election. I did not serve my country for 50 years to have some chicken shit non-profit involved in my personal choices.
Stuart Soffer
First: Soffer and I go round and round on occasion. He’s convinced of the need for a photo ID law, for example. But he’ll also call BS on a fellow Republican when circumstances warrant, as here. Recently, he’s been pestering the fouled-up Jefferson County Democratic power structure and a Democratic county clerk who urged a Democratic vote on Facebook. But he’ll call a Republican bozo a bozo, too.
We still don’t know what all AFP is up to in its messing with voters. It’s raised a stink in other states. In North Carolina, AFP responded to a problem-plagued mailing by saying the material was based on information used in Arkansas. But AFP won’t take calls on their activities here. They have a heavily funded operation with multiple employees working out of Little Rock and on the ground across Arkansas.
Here, maybe their tactic is simple threat of public embarrassment. The Kochs know as well as anyone how to use fear as a political tool.
Can you imagine what this kind of shaming costs? Chump change to the Kochs. If I had to guess, I’d guess the Kochs are targeting Republican primary voters with such mail., figuring them likely targets for the right kind of general election vote. Any Democrats out there get one? If you live in a 100 percent black neighborhood and have never voted in a Republican primary, I’d be particularly interested if you received one of these mailers.
This mailing does raise the question about some curious calls reported in Hot Springs and other locations about whether people were registered to vote, something a vote official would never do.
I ran past Soffer my idea that they were working GOP voter lists. His typically unvarnished response:
They may be working the Republican primary voting lists but why, to turn voters off? You don’t know how badly this pissed me off because it is a classic example of Big Brother. I checked the web site and they seem to be in cahoots with the Tea Party which may explain their approach. Really, really dumb.
BTW, my 50 years was 20 active, 20 for the US Army as a civilian to include a tour in Noriega’s Republic de Panama, and ten as a Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteer patrolling the Arkansas River.