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ACORN

I've been ignorning the ACORN-related conspiracy theories for a while now on the grounds that it's one of many far right wing web site obsessions that aren't going anywhere (for example, like the crazy idea that Bill Ayers actually ghost-wrote Obama's books. No, really.). But it looks like this one is actually perculating its way up into the "mainstream", by which i mean Fox news and the McCain campaign.

ACORN is a good group. It's one that min and i donate to on a regular basis. They are the dreaded "community organizers". They've been doing good work in helping to rebuild New Orleans, for example.

But one of their weaknesses is that they hire low wage workers on their voter registration drives. This is intentional; they don't have huge budgets but they like to create jobs instead of relying on volunteers. Some of these 'employees', however, have been known to make up names instead of bothering to go door to door to get people to fill out voter registration cards. ACORN is aware of that problem and always reviews the results and informs election officials when they see problems (by law you have to hand in all voter registration cards, even ones that are obviously fradulent, so that there can be no accusations of voter suppression). But Republicans are naturally against the registration of low income (and mostly black) voters, and they have always been antagonistic towards the group. This year, however, they are going nuclear because new voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives are such an important part of Obama's election strategy.

For some more of the details, see here, here, and here.

Update: The TPM link above reminds us that this relates back to the US Attorney firings scandal, as those attorneys were fired for failing to find any evidence of wrongdoing relating to this exact issue.

By fnord12 | October 10, 2008, 4:32 PM | Liberal Outrage