ACORN

14 Oct 2008 01:50 pm

ACORN is not the Obama campaign, but what has long been a troubled and troubling organization sure is connected to him over the years:

In 1992 [Obama] led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn's leaders for being "smack dab in the middle" of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls. During his tenure on the board of Chicago's Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for "staging, sound, lighting." It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote.

Yglesias wrote last week about the problem with "paying people based on the number of names they bring in — it creates an incentive for people to pad their lists."

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