Swamp: Responding to Republican complaints about alleged voter registration fraud, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign today suggested such charges are an orchestrated effort to create "noise" and a "smokescreen" to discourage voting.
"It is a strategic and cynical ploy to in some ways denigrate all these people who have decided to participate in their democracy, to sew confusion out there in a deliberate attempt to try and decrease turnout," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in an afternoon conference call with reporters.
Plouffe said he expects Republicans will engage in "unprecedented" levels of voter "suppression and intimidation."
The campaign manager also said Fox News has become "the 24-hour ACORN channel," a reference to coverage of complaints about widespread voter registration irregularities involving the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
Meanwhile the McCain camp desperately tries to tie Obama and Acorn into a pretty bow. I have barely followed this because it's so wispy.
Problem is McCain is just preaching to the choir now. I think Americans realize what the McCain camp is up to.
WaPo: The McCain campaign also has sought to link ACORN to the financial crisis. One of the campaign's online ads says the Chicago chapter of the group was engaged in "bullying banks" to issue "risky" mortgages -- "the same type of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today," the ad's narrator says.
ACORN officials acknowledge that the group lobbied for passage of the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, which required banks to try to increase lending to low-income home buyers. The group also urged banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loosen requirements on mortgages available to low-income applicants.
But ACORN officials, supported by several economists, say it is absurd to blame the crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act, which has been in place for decades. They also note that much of the subprime lending came from investment banks not under the act's jurisdiction. In fact, they say, they have been pressuring federal regulators since 1999 to crack down on many of the institutions that provided subprime loans.
