ACORN: Even a Blind Squirrel...

Even a blind squirrel sometimes gets a nut. Conversely, even a good acorn can fall into the hands of an evil, or just desperate, squirrel.

The McCain campaign is pushing the right-wingnut conspiracy theory of ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now), and its association with Barack Obama. It annoys me to even have to unravel this stupid mess, so I'm not actually going to do that.

I will say this: ACORN nuts, prove your case. I'm not even sure what that case is. ACORN does, among other things, voter registration drives. This makes them targets of conservative witch hunting, liberal boogiemen who want there to be high voter turnout, a death knell for Republican candidates. These types of witch hunts were central to the Gonzo-Gate firings of US Attorneys, many of whom refused to press bogus voter-fraud cases.

As such, if a paid ACORN registrar turns in a false registration (which results only in that registrar being paid for it, not in any false vote), that's supposed to prove that ACORN is the enemy of democracy. The fact is, well-publicized phonies like toda's reported Mickey Mouse registration don't result in a single fraudulent vote. Barack Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit to enforce the "Motor Voter" law in Illinois. Evil, traitorous demon!

HuffPo explains that ACORN vets the applications for accuracy, but they still have to submit all completed forms, so they flag and coversheet the dodgy ones. By all accounts, ACORN has been nothing but cooperative with any and all investigations.

The campaign also paid an ACORN affiliate, CSI, for "Get Out The Vote" activities, which is what ACORN does. Again, what's the problem?

The conservative Wall Street Journal lays it all out, and I think the most telling part is their constant references to ACORN as a "militant advocacy group." So, a group that goes around registering voters and lobbying for things like a living wage is "Militant," but a group that stands opposed to registering, or controlling in any way, the free flow of firearms (The NRA) is an "influential lobby." Wait, "Militant," that has some kind of a high-pitched, inaudible whistle-y component to it.

I've worked as a registrar before, albeit an unpaid one, and so I know how this works. Sure, a guy might turn in some fake forms to get paid, that might work once, but that guy won't be used again. The effort of reading some cover-pages on the fake forms is, in my view, a fair trade-off for greater participation in our democracy. It looks like John McCain from 2006 agrees with me.

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues & Thur at 9pm, and Wed, Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.