Hustler publisher Larry Flynt flips on earlier criticisms, plans to vote for Obama
Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who once ran for governor of California with the slogan “the smut peddler who cares,” told The Daily Caller that he will vote to re-elect President Barack Obama in November.
Flynt has been a longtime Obama skeptic. In December 2010 he penned an open letter to the president in The Daily Beast titled “President Obama: You Are Toast.”
“I was delighted when you were elected,” he wrote then. “Now, like many other Americans, all I see is an ineffectual wimp. If you want a second term in office, you must win back the respect of the American people. From my vantage point it’s hard to see how you can do that.”
In a subsequent April 2011 letter to Obama, he wrote, “As it stands, you can no longer count on any of the groups that supported your Presidential bid last time around.”
But despite his disappointment with Obama on civil liberties issues, on ending foreign wars, on health care reform and on extending the Bush-era tax cuts, Larry Flynt is prepared to change his mind.
“I think Romney will win,” Flynt told TheDC, before hastily correcting himself. “Wait — I mean I think Obama will win, and I’m going to vote for him.”
Asked if he was dissatisfied with Obama’s performance as president, Flynt said Obama “has fallen far short in many ways,” mentioning the extension of the Patriot Act and “the way he’s dealt with Congress.”
But Flynt said it’s important “to consider the lesser of two evils.”
“I don’t think anyone would prefer Romney,” he explained.
Referring to Romney’s 2007 advocacy for porn-blocking software on all new computers, Flynt said the presumptive GOP nominee is “a typical politician: can’t keep the streets clean, but wants to keep our minds clear.”
Flynt added that Romney’s forthcoming commencement address at Liberty University — a school founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell, against whom Flynt won a landmark Supreme Court case on free speech — showed that the former Massachusetts governor “will pander to anyone.”
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