Wednesday, October 15, 2008

ACORN Founder Exposes Connections between GOP Election Tactics and US Attorney Firings

ACORN's founder and former chief organizer, who has an essay due out in a Vanderbilt Press publication, connects the dots at his blog between Republican attempts to manipulate the 2004 elections, Manipulation 2.0 in 2008, and the Alberto Gonzales U.S. Attorney firings. ACORN is always the scapegoat the GOP ties to the pre-election whipping post without just cause, although AG Gonzales' departure has to be some sweet revenge:
Last [election] cycle the RNC in the 11th hour orchestrated filings attacking ACORN through coordinated complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Nothing came of these matters and all of them were dismissed as groundless after the election, but that is hardly important in looking at the political equation. The point for the RNC then (and now) is whether or not they could stir up enough dust clouds to energize their party faithful and confuse the moderates sufficiently. All of this in states like New Mexico and Missouri famously led to the political hatchet job firings of US Attorneys in those states for not joining the attack on ACORN and eventually to the resignation of Attorney General (and Bush crony) Gonzales for allowing the wholesale politicization of the Justice Department.

This is merely a second verse to the same song.

Nevada registration moves solidly to the Democratic column and not surprisingly there is a raid on an ACORN office in Las Vegas ostensibly looking for evidence of some kind of conspiracy to commit “voter fraud.” No charges have been filed. This is hardball politics, my friends, little more.

The other flashpoints and accusations around ACORN have followed exactly the same pattern with accusations, press calls, and the like in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, and elsewhere, all of which are battlegrounds and seeing huge Democratic registration gains.

A lone voice from officials in Colorado was interesting recently as they admitted that they had had no problem working successfully with ACORN and ACORN’s registration people. Of course the officials were not partisans in this big fight, so they were “just the facts” folks. There are not many of them left. Colorado may have also slipped more firmly into the Obama camp ending the monolithic Western vote for Republican presidential candidates for almost a generation.
One wonders why McCain supporters would want to stick their necks out to attack ACORN, since scapegoating tends to come back and bite ACORN opponents eventually.

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