Jan Morgan may not technically win the Republican primary for governor by compiling the most votes, but she has already won the race by driving Gov. Asa Hutchinson into a loud declaration of his position in the farthest right reaches of the political spectrum.

The announcement today of a 50 percent cut in state government — a disingenuous and time-tested bit of political tomfoolery in itself by someone who’s added billions to the budget — was followed by this campaign Twitter post:

Advertisement


I knew deep down all along that Asa hated LGBT people and wanted to criminalize abortion, but he managed to govern without shouting it out loud.  He endorsed a cosmetically mild but still deeply discriminatory anti-LGBT bill, but it wasn’t quite as bad as the openly discriminatory original version. Let there now be no mistake.

Asa wants to marginalize LGBT people.

He wants to marginalize women. And he wants to put out of business anybody who supports the (still legal) right of a woman to choose to end an abortion, even in the safe and very early stages of pregnancy by taking a pill at a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Advertisement

He’s also willing to lie. Planned Parenthood of Arkansas engaged in none of the practices that gave rise to complaints of unethical practices by other clinics in providing fetal tissue for critical medical research. (None of that activity elsewhere was found in multiple investigations to be either illegal or unethical.)  Planned Parenthood of Arkansas has acted ethically and legally in providing a broad and important spectrum of medical services — including contraception that prevents pregnancies that lead to abortion. Asa has done EVERYTHING he can to put them out of business and is proud of it.

Jan Morgan won. Take a bow, Jan.

If Asa isn’t soon posting Twitter video of himself shooting up a deer with an AR-15 I’ll be surprised. Or maybe strapping a .45 on the hip of a smiling kindergarten teacher.

Advertisement

The most depressing thing is that he may be right. Discrimination, subjugation of women, mistreatment of sexual minorities and lying politicians may indeed be what he calls “Arkansas values.”

Advertisement