In what can best be described as an immense display of hubris, former San Francisco Giants star Aubrey Huff is running for a school board position in the Southern California city of Solana Beach.
It’s clear Huff is relying on star power to win the seat (he wrote “Retired Professional Athlete” on his filing paperwork), but there’s a problem with that strategy: Since retiring in 2014, Huff has become more well known for his right-wing politics than for his prowess on the baseball diamond.
Huff’s ardent support for former President Donald Trump likely won’t sit well with voters in Solana Beach, the San Diego County city in which Huff is running. A San Diego Union-Tribune analysis of this year’s June primary election shows that there isn’t a single Solana Beach precinct in which Republicans outnumber Democrats. Huff is running in the coastal portion of Solana Beach, and the Tribune analysis shows Democrats have a double-digit voter registration advantage in all of Solana Beach’s coastal precincts.
School board races are technically non-partisan, but it’s no secret that voters tend to stick to their party preferences in low-information elections like school board races. So, it’s safe to assume that when left-leaning voters learn about some of Huff’s more infamous statements, they’ll likely vote for longtime incumbent Debra Schade.
Before being suspended from Twitter late last year for repeatedly violating the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, Huff was known for composing highly inflammatory posts. He went viral for one posted in November 2019 that showed him at a shooting range with his two sons.
“Getting my boys trained up on how to use a gun in the unlikely event @BernieSanders beats @realDonaldTrump in 2020,” Huff wrote. “In which case knowing how to effectively use a gun under socialism will be a must.”
Then there was January 2020 tweet he posted after learning that the Giants had promoted Alyssa Nakken to be an assistant coach, making her the first full-time female assistant coach in the history of Major League Baseball.
“I got in trouble for wearing a thong in my own clubhouse when female reporters were present,” he wrote. “Can’t imagine how it will play out with a full time female coach running around. This has #metoo & #BelieveAllWomen written all over it … Couldn’t imagine taking baseball instruction from an ex female softball player.”
And, finally, there was that June 2020 tweet about COVID-19 that probably helped lead to his suspension from the platform just a year later.
“If you want to wear a mask and live in fear for the rest of your lives, that’s certainly your prerogative. But the vast majority of well-adjusted, sane, common sense people that aren’t sheep and can reason for themselves agree with me,” he wrote. “If I God forbid get the coronavirus, here’s what I do: I go home, I get well and I get back and live my life. I would rather die from coronavirus than live the rest of my life in fear and wear a mask.”
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