Who’s Afraid of ACORN, and Why

[BigBearJohn]

Today, the McCain-Palin campaign released the Web ad attacking Barack Obama for his ties to ACORN. It’s important to understand the deep roots of the right’s fear and loathing of ACORN and the lengths they’ve gone to t stifle the group’s efforts to broaden Americans’ electoral participation.

Last summer, I reported in Shelterforce magazine on the Republican-directed vendetta against voter registration, orchestrated from the White House against those, like the grass-roots anti-poverty group ACORN, who have a history of working to register poor and minority voters. The vendetta backfired and helped lead to the firing of New Mexico’s U.S. attorney David C. Iglesias, who infuriated state GOP operatives for failing to go after voter-fraud allegations with sufficient zeal.

ACORN came under White House fire after registering more than 1.6 million voters in the past two national elections: mostly poor and minority people who tend to vote Democratic, and mostly in swing states. Republican operatives went after ACORN hard, with a media smear campaign, trumped-up lawsuits in Florida, New Mexico, and Ohio, and pressure on state law-enforcement officials to file criminal charges against the group. Days before the 2006 election, a U.S. attorney in Kansas City brought a voter-fraud indictment against four people registering voters for ACORN, spurring a congressional investigation led by Iowa’s Republican Sen. Charles Grassley.

The GOP voter-fraud vendetta might have remained exactly where Bush loyalists wanted it—below the radar of the press—had it not been for the scandal surrounding the firing of eight U. S. attorneys, including David C. Iglesias of New Mexico. Iglesias lost his job in December 2005 after he declined to prosecute a voter-fraud case against ACORN, which had been registering large numbers of voters in the state’s low-income and largely minority neighborhoods in 2004. Prominent New Mexico Republicans, including U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, had repeatedly complained to chief White House political strategist Karl Rove about Iglesias’ failure to bring voter-fraud indictments. Once Iglesias said he couldn’t prove a case against ACORN, his days were numbered.

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=27676

[truthisfreedom]

1. Not I.

[EFerrari]

2. This is exactly what I've been looking for:

ACORN became a target because of its successful voter-registration work. As the 2004 election approached, then-Attorney-General John Ashcroft launched a broad initiative to crack down on supposed voter fraud in battleground states, including Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and New Mexico, where ACORN was making headway registering voters. In all of those states, Republicans filed suits against ACORN for voter fraud, and, in every case, ACORN was exonerated.

[BigBearJohn]

3. glad I could help

[EFerrari]

5. BushCo should have never fired Iglesias.

He's been busting them in the press but good. Greg Palast did a GREAT interview with him in one of his election fraud segments, and the whole thing starts to fall into place: Corrupt the Justice Department, use the Voting Rights Office to suppress the vote and steal elections -- like they stole Don Siegelman's.

I can't wait until these bastards are all in jail where they belong.

[AkFemDem]

4. I'm not but I do have an irrational fear of SQUIRREL.