Obama's Ties To ACORN More Substantial than first believed

You've heard of Moveon.org and Code Pink - two radical leftist groups seeking to elect out and out socialists to public office and who are fierce opponents of the capitalist sysetm.

But have you heard of ACORN?

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is mostly a city-based group that you may know from their illegal voter registration efforts in several states during the 2004 election.

But this group also is involved in schemes to impose drastic, left wing dogma on the rest of us through political action.

Obama's connection to this group has been shadowy - some work he did back in 1995 representing an effort by the group to get the courts to force Illinois to adopt the motor voter law. But Stanley Kurtz has uncovered even more ties that Obama has to this radical group:

The extent of Obama's ties to Acorn has not been recognized. We find some important details in an article in the journal Social Policy entitled, "Case Study: Chicago - The Barack Obama Campaign," by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago Acorn leader and a member of Acorn's National Association Board. The odd thing about this article is that Foulkes is forced to protect the technically "non-partisan" status of Acorn's get-out-the-vote campaigns, even as he does everything in his power to give Acorn credit for helping its favorite son win the critical 2004 primary that secured Obama the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate.

Before giving us a tour of Acorn's pro-Obama but somehow "non-partisan" election activities, Foulks treats us to a brief history of Obama's ties to Acorn. While most press accounts imply that Obama just happened to be at the sort of public-interest law firm that would take Acorn's "motor voter" case, Foulkes claims that Acorn specifically sought out Obama's representation in the motor voter case, remembering Obama from the days when he worked with Talbot. And while many reports speak of Obama's post-law school role organizing "Project VOTE" in 1992, Foulkes makes it clear that this project was undertaken in direct partnership with Acorn. Foulkes then stresses Obama's yearly service as a key figure in Acorn's leadership-training seminars.

At least a few news reports have briefly mentioned Obama's role in training Acorn's leaders, but none that I know of have said what Foulkes reports next: that Obama's long service with Acorn led many members to serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama's early political campaigns - his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.) With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn leaders, by the time of Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and Acorn were "old friends," says Foulkes.

Not surprisingly it turns out that Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger - two radical clergy closely associated with Obama - have extensive ties to ACORN . Their views fit nicely within the ACORN anti-capitalist agenda that they have been pushing for years.

More evidence, if any were needed, that Obama's past associations have defined him as a politician and that the more radicals that turn up in his background, the more we must question just what his beliefs truly are.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky