WITH ACORN facing vote-fraud investigations in at least 13 states, it is no surprise that Barack Obama wants to distance himself from this band of scandal-plagued community organizers. Yet the degree to which Obama’s campaign has concealed his links to ACORN raises troubling questions about Obama’s candor and forthrightness.
The Obama campaign’s FightTheSmears.com Web site tries to “stay up to date on right-wing smears.” It now asserts “ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer or any type of employee.” But, as ABC News’ Jake Tapper noticed, this updates an earlier claim that proved untrue: “Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.”
In fact, the site acknowledges that Obama sued the state of Illinois on ACORN’s behalf, winning a 1995 case about compliance with the federal “Motor Voter” registration law.
But the online archive is eerily silent about how Obama otherwise has been in cahoots with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The Cleveland Leader first reported that top ACORN activist Toni Foulkes detailed some of this collaboration in the Winter 2003-Spring 2004 issue of the journal Social Policy.
As Foulkes wrote, “We have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus, it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for state Senate and then his failed bid for US Congress.” Foulkes added: “By the time he ran for US Senate, we were old friends.”
Obama’s site also claims that “ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992.” Yet Foulkes’ article seems to indicate that ACORN cooperated with Project Vote. As she explained: “Project Vote delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).”
Writing in February on the campaign’s site, Obama supporter Sam Graham-Felsen cited the Democratic nominee’s remarks to an ACORN gathering last November: “When I ran Project Vote voter registration drives in Illinois,” Obama said, “ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”
Obama’s site conveniently omits his other ties to ACORN:
* While Obama served on the board of directors of Chicago’s Woods Fund, Chicago ACORN got $190,000 in Woods’ money.
* In his address to ACORN last November, Obama said: “I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”
* The Obama campaign paid $832,598 last February to Citizens Services, Inc. – an ACORN affiliate. The campaign originally described this to the Federal Election Commission as “staging, sound, lighting.” In August, it amended that filing to show that the cash went for get-out-the-vote services. ACORN spokesmen have admitted that roughly $80,000 of the payment to CSI flowed into ACORN’s coffers.
* ACORN Votes – ACORN’s PAC – endorsed Obama for president in February. As Arizona’s Alicia Russell, the PAC’s western representative, said at the time: “He’s on the same level we are, and sees our issues as we do.”
While shocking revelations about this group pile up, as if they had fallen from trees, Barack Obama understandably will treat ACORN like something only a squirrel could love. But don’t be fooled. They’re old friends.