ON HILLARY CLINTON'S VOTING RIGHTS PROPOSALS, CHRIS CHRISTIE HAS THE MOST FREEPTASTIC RESPONSE

In response to Hillary Clinton's criticism of voter ID laws, Rick Perry indirectly attacked the poor, though I'm sure his target audience didn't see it that way:

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Friday defended the bill he signed in 2011 requiring voters to present a photo ID after Hillary Clinton jabbed numerous Republican presidential candidates, including Perry, for working "against voting rights."

... On "Fox and Friends" Friday morning, Perry said he thinks "it makes sense to have a photo ID to be able to vote." And he brought up the requirement to present a photo ID in order to fly on commercial airplanes numerous times while defending his voter ID law.

"When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday, I had to show my photo I.D. Now, Hillary Clinton may not to have had to show an ID to get on a airplane in a long time..." he said.

"She’s on a private jet," Brian Kilmeade, one of the "Fox and Friends" co-hosts, jumped in to say....

As Daily Kos's Kerry Eleveld writes, "Rick Perry apparently thinks only people who can fly should be able to vote." The way I' put it is that Rick Perry apparently thinks only people who do fly, or can afford to fly, should be able to vote. In 2003, a Department of Transportation survey noted that

About one out of five adult US residents (18 percent) reported that they had never flown on a commercial airline. Compared to flyers, non-flyers were much more likely to

• report having a disability or health impairment
• be under 25 years of age
• have no more than a high school education
• have a yearly household income of less than $30,000 .

Many poor and disabled people (and, increasingly, young people) don't have driver's licenses at all. I guess Rick Perry thinks they shouldn't vote. (And I imagine a lot of right-wingers agree with him.)

That was a pretty good response to Clinton's voting proposals for someone trying to win wingnut votes. This one, from possible presidential candidate John Kasich on Fox News, was not quite as snarky:

“If she wants to sue somebody, let them sue New York. We have 27 days of voting. In New York the only voting that occurs is on Election Day. What is she talking about? ...”

Kasich said this though (a) Hillary Clinton has never been an elected or appointed official in New York's state government and (b) New York State lacks early voting because of near-total opposition from Republican state legislators. Still, what Kasich said will probably sound perfectly reasonable to the Republican rank-and-file.

But Chris Christie's response to Clinton's call for automatic voter registration hit that all-important Free Republic note:

“Secretary Clinton doesn't know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey or in the other states that she attacked,” Christie said. “My sense is that she just wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud around the country.”

Proposals for automatic voter registration have been floated before -- for instance, by Eric Holder -- and the automatic response at wingnut gathering places such as Free Republic is that it's an open invitation to fraud. It's rarely explained how this will happen -- on the right, it's just a given, just as it's a given that all non-military government programs are wasteful and all undocumented immigrants are societal parasites.

So even though Christie din't make a tightly reasoned argument, he beats Perry and Kasich. The right believes voter fraud is rife, and that Democrats steal elections routinely. If that's the case, I'm not sure why Democrats didn't do more thievery in, say, 2010 and 2014 -- but that's not even question worth asking on the right. To the right, Democrats are the voter fraud party, and Christie wisely went straight for that talking point. If he wants to get back into contention, maybe he should run an entire presidential campaign based on opposition to nonexistent voter fraud.