In Progress

It appears that the Republicans are waging a highly coordinated war against ACORN that threatens to take away their federal funding and associate them with… wait for it… the housing lending crisis.

From CNN:

At a Thursday campaign event, McCain personally called for an investigation of ACORN; the same day, prominent Republicans in Congress said any federal funds going to the organization should be cut off. On Friday, a small group of Republicans in the House of Representatives who had all administered election systems as Secretaries of States asked the Attorney General to conduct an investigation into allegations some of ACORN’s extensive voter registration activities had veered into voter fraud.

In addition to the Web video, the McCain campaign held a conference call Friday that highlighted Sen. Obama’s ties to ACORN, and allegations of wrongdoing by the group. The Republican National Committee also launched a new Web site Friday that had similar themes.

It is amazing that ACORN can be a target because it has helped low-income families across America and enfranchised millions of Americans. This is a scary attack that attempts to demonize community organizing as “radical” when in fact it is the most essentially democratizing work that takes place across the country.

The voter fraud allegations are another part of the story — and there are definitely investigations happening, and voter fraud has been found among ACORN canvassers. Whether these are individuals talking action or a coordinated attempt by ACORN is the real issue — and there are no indications yet to suggest that ACORN is training their workers to commit voter fraud. Of course we need to pursue the voter fraud investigations, but the way the Republicans have rolled out their attacks, and the timing, suggest that the whole thing is super politically motivated.

At the very least, learn more about ACORN and community organizing. More articles: NYT, CNN, AFP

Posted on October 11th, 2008 by DeepthiW
Filed under: Media, Politics, Uncategorized