When asked Sunday by George Stephanopoulos at ABC News, he said, "You know, if -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money." When Stephanopoulos pressed harder, he said, "George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to." (1)
He should be paying attention, though. These are his homies. Consider (2):
- In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary. (3)
- He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. (4)
- In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names. (5)
- In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list).
- In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. (6)
- In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work." (7)
- The Obama campaign also gave Citizens Consulting, Inc., an Acorn subsidiary, $832,000 for get-out-the-vote activities in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as "staging, sound, lighting," only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature. (8)
Another exhaustive timeline of Obama and ACORN can be found at World Net Daily.
The House and Senate have both offered amendments to bills to cut off funding from ACORN. What needs to happen is they need to be combined into a single bill and sent to Obama's desk, where he will be forced to sign it or veto it.
And I probably don't need to do this, but I'm going to ask anyway: where is the media on this? Hello, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, and all you other partisan hacks out there.
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1. Stephanopoulos, George (2009, September 20). "Obama on ACORN: 'Not Something I've Followed Closely' Won't Commit to Cut Federal Funds". ABC News.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from ABC News
2. Fund, John (2009, September 21). "Acorn Who?". The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from The Wall Street Journal
3. Sweet, Lynn (2008, October 6). "ACORN/Project Vote voting drive targeted states Obama needs to win". Chicago Sun-Times.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Chicago Sun-Times
4. Malkin, Michelle (2008, June 25). "The ACORN Obama knows". Michelle Malkin.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Michelle Malkin
5. "AP, CNN report that Obama represented ACORN, but not that DOJ was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit" (2008, October 15). Media Matters.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Media Matters
6. Anburajan, Aswini (2008, April 28). "Obama calls voter ID ruling 'wrong'". MSNBC.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from MSNBC
7. Schilling, Chelsea (2009, September 18). "Unearthed! Obama's twisted ACORN roots". WorldNet Daily.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from WorldNet Daily
8. Brown, David (2008, August 28). "Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
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