Projecting Crimes on ACORN

Here’s what John McCain said in the debate last night about ACORN:

We need to know the full extent of Sen. Obama’s relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.

In psychology, this is known as “projection“. In politics, it’s “cover fire”. Republicans are in the process of cleaning out voter rolls nationwide, removing as many Democrats as they possibly can. Much of what they are doing is illegal, and we will learn the details after the election, just as we did in 2000 and 2004. We got just a taste of it here in Montana when Republicans sent out 6,000 voter registration challenges in Democratic-leaning counties.

They are doing it right out in the open, and so have called on their legions of bloggers and talk radio hosts to cover their backs – to distract attention from their activities. They are leveling accusations at Democrats, and are using ACORN as the marshmallow for toasting. That’s the reason behind McCain’s hyperbole.

ACORN is a group that attempts to register poor people to vote. These people tend to vote Democratic, and so are natural enemies of the Republicans. Frankly, I doubt their efforts yield much – in my one run for office in 1996, I carried hundreds of voter registrations to the court house. But these people tend not to show up on election day. They aren’t really paying attention. So ACORN is probably not terribly effective.

ACORN pays people to get voter registration cards, and hires people who are otherwise not gainfully employed. So it naturally follows that some of these ne’er-do-wells will cheat and make up names. Mickey Mouse turns up, as does Tony Romo. ACORN is required to turn in all registration cards they gather, and so they flag the suspicious ones, and fire the people responsible.

In other words, they are innocent of any wrongdoing except registering people who might vote Democrat. That’s their real crime.

But beyond that, ACORN is just a scapegoat. The Republicans are focusing attention on that group while they go on with their nefarious business of scrubbing voter rolls, merrily breaking laws as they go. They are the real criminals, the real people who are “destroying the fabric of democracy”.

That’s not hyperbole.