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Being Squirrelly About ACORN
October 13, 2008 2:15 PM
As reports pile up of voter registration fraud connected to ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, a group that advocates for low-income voters – the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has sought to downplay his past ties with the group.
But in their efforts to do, Obama campaign officials found themselves forced last week to correct an erroneous assertion made on the campaign’s “Fight the Smears” webpage that “Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.”
That wasn’t true.
In fact, ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg told the New York Times that Obama conducted two unpaid leadership training sessions for ACORN’s Chicago affiliate in the late 1990s.
The “Fight the Smears” website now asserts, "Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee.”
Key word: hired.
Goldberg told the Times that Obama’s work for ACORN was unpaid.
You can see the old version HERE and the new version HERE.
Moreover, Obama also represented ACORN and other groups in the mid 1990s as an attorney suing the state of Illinois to uphold the federal Motor Voter law. The governor and other officials of the State of Illinois were refusing to comply with the law on the ground that it was unconstitutional.
**
Further confusing the length and depth of the Obama-ACORN relationship was the discovery by conservative bloggers of an error-riddled story in the journal Social Policy featuring not only a 2004 photograph of Obama and ACORN members but an essay called “Case Study: Chicago- The Barack Obama Campaign” written Toni Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN Leader.
"Obama started building the base years before,” Foulkes wrote in her 2004 essay. “For instance, ACORN noticed him when he was organizing on the far south side of the city with the Developing Communities Project. He was a very good organizer. When he returned from law school, we asked him to help us with a lawsuit to challenge the state of Illinois’ refusal to abide by the National Voting Rights Act, also known as motor voter. Allied only with the state of Mississippi, Illinois had been refusing to allow mass-based voter registration according to the new law. Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5000 of them).”
Foulkes messed up the chronology in that account, making it sound earlier than it had occurred. The Motor Voter Law was passed in 1993, the lawsuit was brought in 1995.
Additionally, press accounts from the time of the Illinois Project Vote voter registration drive put the number of new voters registered at 150,000, not 50,000.
Still, that doesn't seem to square with the Obama campaign's assertion that "Fact: ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992."
Foulkes went on to note that “since then,” ACORN had “invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends."
Obama’s losing congressional campaign was in 2000, not 1996.
**
Further adding to the confusion were rather questionable charges coming from the campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which has sought to portray Obama’s training sessions in just about the most negative light imaginable.
In a conference call, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis urged reporters to ask Obama of the ACORN training sessions, “What were you teaching them? Were you teaching them how to evade the law?”
"Were you teaching them how to evade the law?" ???
Excuse me?
Davis also incorrectly asserted that when Obama represented ACORN he was standing “against the State of Illinois and the federal government.”
Actually, the Justice Department was a co-plaintiff with ACORN in the suit.
**
Obama backers today pointed out that McCain in February 2006 participated in a Miami rally in support of McCain’s immigration reform bill that was sponsored by ACORN as well as other groups, according to the press release. For whatever it's worth, a photo from that rally can be seen HERE.
-- jpt
October 13, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (315)
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What yayrd signs in Oregon would you be asking about, the one's that supported McCain and had the motov coacktail hurdled at them, or some disturbing anti- democrat sign?
Posted by: Jackie Allen | Oct 14, 2008 2:46:35 AM
WHAT ABOUT HE 800 GRAND BO PAID ACORN IN TH PRIAMRY???????????????????????
YEAH---------
800 G R A N D
Posted by: jayelo | Oct 14, 2008 12:57:08 AM
Here's a contemporaneous account (1993) from Chicago Magazine about Obama's work to register those 150,000 voters. You will note ACORN isn't mentioned. If they had been involved, I expect they would have been included.
"In its technical demands, a voter-registration drive is not unlike a mini-political campaign," says John Schmidt, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and a fundraiser for Project Vote! "Barack ran this superbly. I have no doubt he could run an equally good political campaign if that's what he decided to do next."
Posted by: Tom J | Oct 14, 2008 12:30:20 AM
So basically Obama LIED about his association with ACORN.
This is not surprising.
Posted by: Greg h | Oct 14, 2008 12:13:16 AM
Are these the same volunteers that stole Proposition 8 and McCain Palin signs all over California last weekend? Are these the same volunteers that threaten widows because they oppose same sex marriage? Are these the same volunteers who cry out for free speech, unless it opposes their brand of speech.
This conduct sounds similar to the conduct of CREEP and the Nixon Watergate era. By their fruits you shall know them. Obama is a ravenous wolf in sheeps clothing.
Posted by: Plutarch2008 | Oct 13, 2008 11:42:35 PM
Those fraudulent voter registrations get a ballot in the mail and can then send in an absentee (vote by mail) ballot , so they can vote!
Posted by: BC | Oct 13, 2008 11:25:58 PM
Show me those people in Las Vegas who plan to vote for Barack Obama while impersonating the members of the Dallas Cowboys, and perhaps I'll take the GOP's ACORN story seriously.
Until them, I'll stand my contention that this is overblown. The Republicans tried this on the federal level before, and ended up firing those U.S. attorneys like David Iglesias who refused to go along with their scheme.
The most egregious instances of electoral fraud in history have always been committed by those officials who abuse their positions of authority to malevolently influence the counting of votes, and not by those citizens who merely seek to cast them.
Posted by: Donald from Hawaii | Oct 13, 2008 10:54:10 PM
D:
Unbelievable. If it's no big deal to register new potential voters then why would groups like Acorn spend so much time doing all this?
This type of voter fraud is as old as voting. Once the election is underway suddenly these "resigtered" voters begin showing up in mass. The hell w/ the law.
Bet on it, employees from Acorn will go to jail!
Posted by: gayle | Oct 13, 2008 10:29:12 PM
d
also the point is there should be better things to make poor people do that work for ACORN than meet a quota in voter registrations when you do that you make mistakes and usually make up stuff to get more registrations
Posted by: staniam | Oct 13, 2008 10:19:38 PM
Who cares? It's not as though one of these nonexistent registrants like "Mickey Mouse" would actually show up to vote on election day.
Registering to vote is not the same thing as voting.
I'm not saying fake voter registrations are good, I'm just saying it didn't hurt anyone, or alter an election or anything else. It was just some Acorn worker trying to meet their days' quota of registrations.
Posted by: d | Oct 13, 2008 10:01:53 PM
McCain can't talk about the economy because has forgotten what it is to have only one house to go home to.He does not have to worry about where he is going to park his cars how he will pay his bills much less the the middle class person.And as far as Obamas association with Ayers the people that are on that same board are supporters of McCain and now there is proof that McCain was attended a meeting at ACORN and as far as Rezko, McCain can lay claim to the Keating Five which took millions if not a billion from the elderly so he has no room to talk.
Posted by: damehen | Oct 13, 2008 9:47:38 PM
It seems that many minorities have been targeted by ACORN to fill out registrations as many as possible in order to help the person financially trying to get the registration. So everybody knew it was a scam. ACORN is a scam taking federal money and having absolutely no oversight. The problem is calling into question the honesty of this supposedly non-partisan group immediately makes its supporters cry "racist". This behavior will backfire as well as the nonsense occurring at the McCain rallies. I would wonder about this though. Can anybody verify if supporters at either camp are not plants? I mean if anybody wanted to paint the other a racist put a bunch of racists in the group to stir up trouble. As far as Obama, parsing words to try to deflect the truth is probably the most dishonest thing any candidate can do from my perspective. Both do it, but Obama is really quick to try to silence his critics by pretty much refusing to answer the question or just giving one pat answer and insisting the other candidate is trying to scare of confuse the voters. The truth is we all know Obama "volunteered" to train ACORN workers and that he represented them when he worked for that law firm in Chicago. What I see happening is that Obama will once again say that who he knew or the organization he once knew is not the same today. END OF CONVERSATION. It is a pattern.
Posted by: Susan | Oct 13, 2008 9:41:47 PM
I am amazed at the lack of outrage on this website regarding the voter fraud action of ACORN! These CRIMINALS are stealing your votes, my vote! The Democrats have made a conscious decision to steal the election BEFORE the vote on November 4.
Posted by: Phyllis | Oct 13, 2008 8:50:21 PM
Obama supporter yelled at McCain's rally tonight in north carolina that he is a murderer because of his service in Vietnam flying planes. This is a standard line of attack from Obama supporters on c-span.
Posted by: Dan | Oct 13, 2008 8:36:38 PM
When did telling the truth about someone become a smear! Did Hillary smear Obama too? It's sad that so many of us get caught up into presentations instead of substance and/or character! This man, Obama, could not be a highway patrolman with his background, but he might be president! Shame on us all!
Posted by: Joseph Daniel Patterson Jr. | Oct 13, 2008 8:35:10 PM
Posted by: Jim | Oct 13, 2008 7:45:44 PM
Finally! Maybe the GOP parrots will let the subject of ACORN go.
Posted by: Jwench | Oct 13, 2008 7:50:35 PM
I guess the parrots will leave ACORN alone now. So far these smears have backfired on the GOP big time.
Posted by: Jwench | Oct 13, 2008 7:29:15 PM
Acorn again?
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
How about some more McCain Palin ANGRY MOB SCENE STORIES!! Did you hear what they were yelling in the background at McCains rally this morning?? Did you see the ANGRY MOBS twisted hateful faces behind McCain, when he was YELLING FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING??
Posted by: Davis | Oct 13, 2008 6:59:39 PM
Another desperate red herring from the rapidly sinking McCain campaign that intelligent voters simply don't care about.
And this rates as news?
Posted by: R | Oct 13, 2008 6:44:07 PM
+++++++++++
R. If you don't give us a hint about what or who you're talking about you might as well be talking to yourself.
Posted by: Callie | Oct 13, 2008 6:49:24 PM
sandi,
You wrote, "If people really want to register there are many ways of doing so.
Court house, post office, on line etc etc...still have to show ID when they vote."
__________
But obviously those doing the honors in behalf of Acorn.. were not being quite so fastidious!
They signed up the same name many times, and even the same handwriting.
Some of the registrants were long dead; others lived elsewhere; some NEVER existed!
Acorn, obviously, required NO identification for these registrants.... and for all we know, they might have been registering terrorists....
But probably, they were more interested in registering Democrats.
Was THAT why Obama paid them almost a million bucks?
hmmmmmmm.
Posted by: DON'T STAND FOR THIS! | Oct 13, 2008 6:48:58 PM
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