TOLEDO, Ohio -- Sen. Barack Obama distanced himself from the voter registration group ACORN but also downplayed the fraud controversy that has embroiled the organization in recent days.
GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin told radio host Rush Limbaugh this afternoon that Obama has a responsibility to "rein in" ACORN, a pro-Obama community organizing group that signs up low-income people to vote. ACORN offices are under scrutiny in numerous states for allegedly having registered thousands of people under fake names, including those of sports stars and other celebrities, along with Disney characters. Taking a break from debate preparations, Obama told reporters during a brief press conference this afternoon, "My relationship to ACORN is pretty straightforward. It's probably 13 years ago when I was still practicing law, I represented ACORN and my partner in that representation was the U.S. Justice Department in having Illinois implement what was called the "motor voter" law, to make sure that people could go to DMVs and driver's license facilities to get registered. It wasn't being implemented. That was my relationship, and is my relationship to ACORN." He said he had further interactions with the group through its Chicago office, in his capacity as a local elected official. "But they are not advising our campaign," Obama asserted. "We've got the best voter registration and turnout and volunteer operation in politics right now and we don't need ACORN's help." He also sought to add some context to ACORN's travails, now a staple of conservative cable and radio shows, as Republicans point to the scandal as a way of casting doubt on the Obama campaign's organizing practices. "Having run a voter registration drive, I know how problems arise," Obama said, referring to work he did years ago in Illinois. "This is typically a situation where ACORN probably paid people to get registrations and these folks, not wanting to actually register people because that's actually hard work, just went into a phone book or made up names and submitted false registrations to get paid. So there's been fraud perpetrated probably on ACORN if they paid these individuals and they actually didn't do registrations." But Obama continued, "This isn't a situation where there's actually people who are going to try to vote because these are phony names. It's doubtful Tony Romo is gonna show up in Ohio to vote," he said, referring to the Dallas Cowboys quarterback, whose name surfaced on Nevada ACORN forms. "So this is another one of these distractions that gets stirred up in the course of a campaign," Obama concluded. "But what I want to make sure of is that this is not used as an excuse for the kind of voter suppression strategies and tactics that we've seen in the past. Let's just make sure everybody is voting, everybody's registered. Let's make sure that everybody's doing it in a lawful way." ~~ Washington Post - Oct 14, 2008: http://tinyurl.com/3zktye
