As we discussed here yesterday, Rick Perry ran to Fox this week to attack Hillary Clinton for her comments about Texas and other states doing their best to disenfranchise voters and her calls for automatic voter registration and longer early voting periods. Perry did his best to paint Clinton as some out of touch elitist in response, but of course never addressed the real issue of disenfranchising voters.
This Sunday it was more of the same on CNN's State of the Union, where Dana Bash asked Perry about Clinton's remarks as well. Perry responded this time by trying to blame the voters of his state rather than the politicians for doing their best to keep Democrats from voting, and to pretend that Clinton was making some sort of personal attack on them, rather than the people they elected.
Bash also gave Perry a complete pass when she asked him why it was okay to use a gun license to vote and not a college ID and did absolutely no follow up when he just changed the subject instead of answering. Instead of pushing and telling him that he didn't answer her question, she let him blather on about needing an ID to drive or fly on a plane and conflate that with what is supposed to be a right, not privilege.
Here's more from The Hill: Perry defends Texas voter ID law on heels of Clinton criticism:
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) in an interview that aired Sunday defended the Lone Star state’s voter identification law, despite a recent criticism by Hillary Clinton.
“I think it’s way outside the norm of ridiculous, if you want to know the truth in the matter, to call out the people in the state of Texas, because that’s what she said. I just happened to be the governor to sign that legislation I had supported,” Perry said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
On Thursday, Clinton, considered the Democratic frontrunner for president, slammed her GOP rivals for “systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of citizens from voting” through voting requirements they’ve pushed through in their states. [...]
Perry dismissed Clinton’s comments and argued people have to bring a photo ID to check out a library book or to get on an airplane.
“I think we make it pretty easy in the state of Texas for people to vote, so, you know, again, I don't know what her beef is with the people of the state of Texas about voter ID, but I think she's on the wrong side of the issue,” Perry said.
