Republicans try to tie Obama to vote fraud cases

Activist group blames workers for bogus cards
By Brian C. Mooney
Globe Staff / October 10, 2008

... ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring said that in most cases the bogus registrations were flagged by ACORN supervisors during a review, brought to the attention of the local officials when they were submitted, and ACORN fired "probably a couple of dozen" employees who fabricated them. Under most state laws, the organization must submit every card an employee collects, he said.

The Republican National Committee has held five separate conference calls for reporters on the subject this week after a string of news reports in different states, and McCain's campaign has also been trumpeting links between the organization and Obama dating back 13 years.

In 1995, as a lawyer in private practice, Obama and two other lawyers from his firm represented ACORN in a successful suit that forced the state of Illinois to comply with a federal law that made it easier to register to vote. The group's political arm endorsed Obama this February and an ACORN-affiliated group was paid about $800,000 for get-out-the-vote operations in four states during the primaries. The Obama campaign flatly denied Republican assertions that Obama once trained ACORN employees.

Yesterday, RNC chief counsel Sean Cairncross called ACORN "a quasi-criminal organization" engaged in "a systematic effort to undermine the integrity of the election process nationwide." He said the organization's voter registration activities are under investigation in Nevada, New Mexico, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri ...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/10/10/republicans_try_to_tie_obama_to_vote_fraud_cases/

A DU post about RW "chatter" on freeper-ish blogs about Patrick Fitzgerald heading up a 10 state RICO
investigation into ACORN and Obama's (not to mention Biden, Pelosi, Reid????) links to ACORN being
slandered as a "criminal organization". But at this point, it's all chatter, and appears to just be
one RW loony-toon's claim to have "inside sources" .. most of the posts I could stand to read were
all the same text pretty much, but apparently McLame's campaign is so desperate they are slobbering
all over their collective keyboards over this prospect.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7394233&mesg_id=7394233

Here's the "chatter" if you have the stomach for it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Patrick+Fitzgerald++Obama++ACORN++RICO&start=0&sa=N

but after the Georgia Thompson & Gov Siegelman cases & the attorneygate crap, I think it'd likely backfire

the premise that everyone deserves a lawyer. Second, the suit was SUCCESSFUL. When someone proves that Obama himself did something wrong when he registered voters in Chicago, get back to me, k? Meanwhile, STFU.