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Campaign Crawlers
Church, Rendell Find Ways to Boost Obama
They are the same.
So says Anita Moncrief, a former Washington staffer of Project Vote, of the relationship between ACORN, Project Vote -- the latter a controversial voter registration group accused of falsely presenting itself as nonpartisan -- and the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
Should the United Church of Christ, Obama's religious denomination, be added to that list?
In a lawsuit filed against ACORN by the Pennsylvania Republican Party, heard in a state court on Wednesday, "Moncrief's testimony shed light on the inner workings of ACORN and their fraudulent voter registration practices, and substantiates the concerns our Party has raised in our lawsuit," Chairman Robert Gleason said. "Her testimony makes it clear that the Obama Campaign, Project Vote and ACORN are all working in direct coordination to help elect Barack Obama."
The United Church of Christ is the parent denomination of the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity UCC. Wright is Obama's now former pastor. While Obama has broken with Wright, he is still a member of the UCC. Earlier this year the UCC was the subject of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service over an appearance by Obama at the denomination's General Synod in 2007. Obama's appearance drew a formal complaint the church had violated its tax exempt status by giving a forum to the declared presidential candidate. The church was cleared of any wrongdoing. Yet its left-leaning national leadership persists in putting the denomination, which counts as many as 41% of its members as self-identified conservatives (as opposed to 40% moderates and 19% liberals), in the danger zone with legal authorities by its continued and quite open flirtation with Obama in violation of its tax exempt status.
In this case the UCC website lists Project Vote, which Moncrief identified as an ACORN affiliate, as one of "the organizations and websites that staff of the UCC refer to when we receive election-related information requests from our members." The church then supplies a "Helpful Link" to Project Vote. Project Vote, according to a source involved directly with the Pennsylvania lawsuit, was identified by Ms. Moncrief as having received a donor list from the Obama campaign through Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette. Project Vote has denied the charge, but a copy of the Obama list has been obtained by The American Spectator.
According to a story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Moncrief also said she has a copy of a 'development plan' that outlines how Obama contributors who had 'maxed out' under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors."
The link to Project Vote on the UCC website takes the viewer immediately to a number of current news stories featured on the Project Vote site, one of which proudly describes Project Vote and ACORN as "working" together on registration efforts in the battleground state of Missouri.
ACORN is under federal investigation in a number of states for voter fraud, the subject of the lawsuit in Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court. The suit alleges fraud in four Pennsylvania counties -- Philadelphia, Allegheny, Dauphin and Delaware. Moncrief, who has been fired by Project Vote and claims she has been subjected to intimidation efforts designed to get her to "back off," testified for two hours on Wednesday.
Once again this puts the United Church of Christ smack in the middle of another controversy related to Obama. There is a world of difference between Project Vote and, say, the Federal Election Commission or the League of Women Voters, both also linked on the UCC website. As a church, one can only marvel at the idea the church leadership promotes any kind of a relationship with people associated with accusations of deliberately violating election law and intimidating a witness. Attorney Heather Heidelbaugh, representing the Pennsylvania Republican Party in the suit, said the 29-year-old Moncrief, an African-American, had testified at "great personal risk."
Hey, no big deal to the UCC.
ON A SECOND, related front in Pennsylvania, it develops that the Pennsylvania Department of State has been making thousands of taxpayer funded "robo-calls" to new registrants around the state reminding them to "be prepared for Election Day." Here's the excerpt from an October 21st memo sent to "All County Contacts for Elections" from Chet Harhut, the head of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation. The memo refers to a column in an extensive "Election Preparation Spreadsheet."
"Number of Robo-Calls given in District -- Found in Column L, this column represents the number of robo-calls that were made into the district for new registrants reminding them to be prepared for Election Day."
In other words, under the guise of being helpful to all those "new registrants" brought in by the likes of ACORN, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, already involved in a lawsuit over fraudulent registrants, is using taxpayer dollars now to ensure that "new registrants" are prepared for election day. This comes, of course, at the direction of Harhut's boss, Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes. Cortes in turn is an employee of Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell, an Obama supporter who is busily pulling out all the stops to carry the state for Obama. Were any Republican legislator to use taxpayer-funded resources to send "robo-calls" into his or her legislative district targeting new registrants -- instead of campaign money -- the outcry would be, deservedly so, immediate. But to date, you are reading about this only in The American Spectator.
The Harhut memo also contains this curious reference:
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Wes Prussing| 10.31.08 @ 10:13AM
Excellent reporting. I have been puzzled however that there have been no interviews with Trinity UCC members. Does the fact that Obama vociferously condemned and refuted Jeremiah Wright views before a nation (world) audience alter their opinion of him and/or affect their presidential preferences? These followers presumably knew full well what Rev. Wright was all about. Judging by the tapes we've seen they strongly supported with his positions.
So do they still support Obama and his candidacy? Or do they in turn disavow him for disavowing their pastor?
I think the answers would help explain the mindset of much of Obama's base.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 11:32AM
Apparently, most voters are smart enough to sort through these issues.
They understand, for example, that a man need not be judged by his church in the public sphere. (To do so is downright Un-American.)
They understand that registration malfeasance is NOT voter fraud -- that comparing them is like comparing shoplifting to armed robbery.
They've seen through the subtle attempts to associate Obama with symbols of urban culture that provoke white anxiety. In the end, it really is the economy, stupid. And people overwhelming trust Obama to handle the economy.
Fifty years ago they were still lynching black (and white) men for registering people to vote. It was the tail end of what was probably the most successful terrorist wave in western history.
But no more. Obama is going to be president, depsite the lies, the smears, the proto-fascist rallies, the shameful rumor mongering, the hate, the stupidity, and the arrogant provincialism.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 2:17PM
Marc Jeric --
You are a silly ass, but I enjoyed your attempt to rename Obama and to make an argument that he and his supporters are communists and nazis.
Sounds like wild desperation to me.
Jeffrey Lord| 10.31.08 @ 4:46PM
Tom...
Nice try. Fifty years ago the "people" doing the lynching were...yes...Democrats. The same Democrats whose very political majorities were built by strong support for slavery, then segregation and yes, lynching. Which is another way of saying your favorite party is obsessed with race. Barack Obama is not a black man, he is a man who happens to be black. His ideas are not even remotely new. They have been tried repeatedly around the world and failed every single time. The only "arrogant provincialism" at play here is the notion that there are enough dumb people out here who don't understand the Democrats insistence on politicizing the mortgage industry has now brought serious trouble to everyone else. Maybe there are people who will have to learn all over again what the Germans, Russians, British, French, Italians and an endless parade of others - Americans included - have learned. That's why the rest of us are here.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 5:09PM
Jeffrey Lord --
You're right that the Democratic Party was -- was -- the party of segregation, and you're right that they were the party of slavery. Lincoln's great party brought much good to this country, and it eventually took up the progressive cause on behalf of workers' rights.
Then things changed, as you know. The Democrats, under Kennedy, took up the cause of civil rights.
During this period, the Republicans developed what is called "the southern strategy," in which they absorbed the people who could no longer be a part of the new Democratic party because of their anti-segregation platform.
The lynchings and beatings and arsons and rapes and harassment and voter purges along with the rest of the crimes systematically carried out against black people to intimidate them and prevent them from participating in politics were most certainly not Kennedy Democrats, nor would they consent to join our party now.
No sir, they voted for Wallace or Nixon in the 60s, and to the extent that they still exist, they are Republicans now.
Jeffrey Lord| 11.1.08 @ 9:38AM
Tom...
Alas...this is not so. First...and as a youthful admirer of JFK and RFK I hate to admit this...the Kennedys - quite deliberately - drew considerable support from the segregationists. JFK appointed judges he knew beyond doubt were rabid racists - a Mississippi judge, for example, who was a crony of Senator Eastland - and actively courted the likes of rabidly segregationist Alabama Governor John Patterson etc etc etc. One of the most notable events of 1963 - Dr. King's "I have a dream speech" has no shot of a listening JFK in the crowd behind him because JFK had no intention of lending his presence for fear of associating himself with King in such a public fashion. Teddy Kennedy is famous for boasting that JFK got more votes in Georgia in 1960 than anyplace else (percentage wise) than Massachusetts. What he doesn't say is that those votes came from white segregationists.
The point here is that the idea of Democrats as the home of Civil Rights is a myth. They opposed the 13th amendment (banning slavery), the 14th and the 15th (giving blacks legal rights and the right to vote) and the Civil Rights bills of 1866 and 1875, giving blacks all the rights of they had to be granted all over again in the 1960's because Democrats spent a century AFTER the Civil War fighting equality. All of these things were done by Republicans. It is in the GOP DNA. George Wallace, as you know, was never a Republican. He campaigned repeatedly saying the same things Democrats - including Klan member Hugo Black, Senator from Alabama and FDR's Court appointee- campaigned on for decade after decade. These are the people who provided the votes for the New Deal, for the creation of things like the Federal Reserve and Social Security, both of which were essentially created in return for a wink and a nod at murdering blacks. And it was Richard Nixon who desegregated the schools for good, putting an end to this nonsense for good. Presumably you are opposed to the Iraq War, which is being run in part by a black woman from Birmingham. Presumably you are opposed to the lone black man on the Supreme Court. Both Rice and Thomas - yes, Colin Powell too - are where they are because they belong to the only color blind party in the nation. Their opposition - and ugly it has been - has come from the left. The real point here is this: you cannot run a political party based on the most viscious of racial beliefs for 165 plus years and not emerge with a politically instinctive psychology that drives you to judge everyone and everything by race. This is at the core of every Democratic Party policy from slavery to racial quotas. It surfaced with Bill Clinton in South Carolina this year, with Hillary Clinton here in Pennsylvania (and Jack Murtha too) and with Obama's repeated playing of the race card. They simply cannot help themselves. It is identity politics - racial politics in this case. And it is exactly what's wrong historically with our country - and should have no part in our politics today. Period. If you disagree with Clarence Thomas, that's OK. It's not OK to go the Uncle Tom route or play to the stereotype of blacks as ignorant (of the law, in his case - something Harry Reid once said of him) and play the Old Mastuh who jist gets a tad upset seeing people he's supposed to "own" intellectually walk off the intellectual plantation that is the Democratic Party. Sorry - times have changed.
Thus endeth the sermon. :)
Tom Paine| 11.1.08 @ 10:19AM
So....the fact that 90% of African Americans will vote for Obama on Tuesday is either a) because they're voting based entirely on race; or b) they're too stupid to understand that the Democratic party is plotting against them and still is the party of segregation and slavery? Is that the sermon's point?
Kennedy was on the cusp of this change. JFK's feeling about segregation were different, actually than RFKs -- but you'll recall JFK almost sent federal troops into Mississippi to enforce a court order related to desegregation.
JFK wanted a second term. He was a politician, not an angel. He wanted to carry Southern states, so he tried to finesse the issue. His brother, alas, threw in with the civil rights movement much more forcefully, although I don't know that many of his admirers remember how tough and actually conservative he was.
Ronald Reagan began his second race for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and told the crowd that he believed in "states rights." Even in 1980, every white person in his audience knew what he meant.
Al's Gore| 11.1.08 @ 11:14AM
"So....the fact that 90% of African Americans will vote for Obama on Tuesday is either a) because they're voting based entirely on race; or b) they're too stupid to understand that the Democratic party is plotting against them and still is the party of segregation and slavery?"
Hey, it's sinking in! Good for you.
Tom Paine| 11.1.08 @ 12:17PM
Al's Gore
And you wonder why people suspect conservatives of racism?
Jack| 11.2.08 @ 2:54PM
If 90 percent of whites voted Republican what would you call them? The ability to play the race card is well learned by Democrats...it isn't called the "black card" or the "white card" it's called the "race card"...One does not have to be white to be a racist...One has to be a human. Democrats are very good at this game whether they were George Wallace or Al Sharpton...the game is the same. And its disgusting.
Tom Paine| 11.2.08 @ 7:13PM
Jack --
You're way over-thinking this, Jack. The fact of the matter is that tens of millions of white people will vote for Obama on Tuesday.
Presumably they will have reasons other than race to do so. To assume you know the motivation of black people who vote for Obama is the essence of racism. It is the very thing itself.
When you assume you can peer inside of an individual's mind based on a superficial association with a group over which he has no control.
There's no mystery why blacks and hispanics and Native Americans are voting for Obama: they see it as in their personal interests and in the interests of this country -- i.e. the same kinds of reasons you would give about voting for whomever you are voting for.
And it's not disgusting for middle class and working class people to vote for the party that stands up for them, although Republicans lose if they can't trick them into thinking it is. Every time.
Well this time, Jack, the Republicans are going to lose.
They're going to lose because they could keep Bill Ayers, J. Wright, abortion, pig lipstick, lapel jewelry, gay marriage, or any of the other culture war nonsense on the front pages with all that's going on in the world. And when the culture war is not at the center of everyone's attention, the Republican's lose. And lose they will Tuesday, my friend.
Jeffrey Lord| 11.3.08 @ 10:58AM
Hmmmm...Tom...You have nailed yourself exactly. Says Tom: "To assume you know the motivation of black people who vote for Obama is the essence of racism. It is the very thing itself."
Well said. So all those decades when white people in the South voted overwhelmingly for Democrats...and later for Nixon or Reagan etc etc...they were not voting based on race. You could not possibly get into their heads...who knows why they voted the way they did? Maybe it was something else...the economy??? The Vietnam War? The Cold War? Abortion? Crime? You have it exactly right. Those who vote for Nixon, Reagan, Obama etc are voters with their own honest concerns...not racists. Your're getting color blind Tom! Congrats!
Tom Paine| 11.3.08 @ 4:30PM
Mr. Lord,
You make good points.
But poor whites in the south voted for segregationists because they saw segregation as in their economic interest: it wasn't just a "cultural issue."
Similarly, working class and middle class whites still harbor fears that policies promoting blacks into the middle class may endanger their own security, and this translates into votes. There can be no question about it. Nixon and Reagan were very adept at playing on those anxieties, and we still see it all the time.
That's not to say that everyone who votes for Nixon, Reagan or anyone else is a racist. That's not even really to say that poor whites who voted for segregation were necessarily racists.
However, the racist system that pitted poor whites against blacks in the south ought to be seen for what it was, just as race politics today ought to be seen for what they are. If you think Rev. Wright is ONLY about Rev. Wright and Obama's relationship with him, you're fooling yourself. And when McCain resurrects the word "welfare" to describe Obama's plan to return tax rates to what they were in the late 90s, there's no accident he's choosing a word that provokes anxiety among whites about urban blacks getting big fat checks from the federal government.
(The fact is that welfare always disproportionately went to rural whites. IN fact, when it comes to social programs, you largely have blue state dollars sent to red states to aid poor whites who then vote Republican and claim to hate the government. Go figure.)
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