CT Blue

John McCain is so eager to latch onto each anti-Obama right wing meme that he doesn’t stop to consider possible boomerang effects.

The latest non-issue working the right into the lather is Obama’s association with ACORN, a community organizing group that, among other things, tries to register low-income voters. Unfortunately, the group pays the folks gathering the signature on a per-signature basis, which is like an open invitation for them to cheat, which they do. This, by the way, is a far cry from voting fraud, since there’s no evidence that any of the fictitious registrants actually turn up to vote, and apparently ACORN takes steps to weed out suspicious registrations. In any event, per usual, Obama’s ties to the group are not related to any of that, but it hasn’t stopped McCain from climbing on the anti-ACORN bankwagon.

But it turns out that by his own logic, McCain is an ACORN fellow traveler:

The beleaguered Democratic-leaning community group Acorn sends over this photograph: John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event Acorn co-sponsored in Florida.

The immigration event, which other photos show was packed with red-shirted Acorn member, was co-sponsored by the local Catholic Archdiocese, the SEIU, and other groups.

McCain, still spiting much of his party on immigration at the time, was the headliner.

Bertha Lewis, Acorn’s chief organizer, said in a statement that came with the photo, “It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans.”

”We are sure that the extremists he is trying to get into a froth will be even more excited to learn that John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with ACORN, at an ACORN co-sponsored event, to promote immigration reform,” she said.

Of course, we have now entered a surreal period in the campaign where up is literally down, so the McCain campaign will no doubt blithely ignore his hypocrisy and continue to try to tar Obama for this association with a group that is doing nothing wrong.

I usually agree with Frank Rich, but I must humbly beg to differ with his latest column. He makes the rather obvious observation that McCain’s current campaign tactics are bottomed in racism, though the McCain campaign would never be so tacky as to be explicit about it. Code is sufficient. But this brought me up short:

McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead.

This is a common line of argument in this country. I very much doubt that Rich personally knows McCain well, if at all. He is undoubtedly relying on the tattered remnants of McCain’s reputation for integrity. Implicit in the statement is the following argument: a person can act like a racist, or exploit racism, without actually being a racist.

I’m not sure I understand the distinction. McCain has made the conscious (presumably, unless he is actually fully senile) choice to act like a racist. If it walks like a duck, etc., it’s a duck, whether or not, deep in its heart, it insists it’s a goose. Didn’t Jesus say “By their fruits ye shall know them”?

The National Republican Party has built its electoral strategy on racism since 1968. Yet there’s not a one of them that will honestly cop to being a racist, David Duke excepted. The media has generally been wiling to give them each a free pass on this, as Rich has done for McCain.