A quick comment about Acorn:That organization has been in the news recently and Fox News and Limbaugh are piling on. Acorn has lost some public support and people are wondering if this will have ramifications for Democrats or Obama.
Unlikely.
A substantial reason is that
there is no public face of Acorn. Who is its leader? All I've seen are grainy shots of low-level workers in offices scattered around the country.
In politics you get traction - good or bad - when a person (or persons) is associated with an organization. That's how the mind works. You think of an organization largely in conjunction with "that man" or "that woman" who shows up at press conferences or to do interviews. Obviously, Acorn has a hierarchy with real executives, but up until now it's been largely invisible. Thus no stories about person X visiting the White House or Harry Reid, which is how a bad reputation for Acorn could spread to the Democrats.
posted by Quiddity at 9/26/2009 10:54:00 AM
I wish this dynamic would take hold of accused murderer Eric Prince of Blackwater/Xe.
I thought about that while composing the post. Prince generally keeps a low profile unless he's having a softball interview on Charlie Rose. So I knew that my post was an oversimplification of what happens. But I think that, on the whole, an organization without a prominent public person tends to be harder to vilify (or praise for that matter).
True, for the moment, that there is no public face of ACORN. But I notice the right-wing noise machine is shifting into overdrive to make Obama the public face of ACORN. Just this week we began seeing Republicans spouting the new party line that Obama is the "leader" of ACORN, and thus responsible for its actions. Look for much more of this--especially as the media finds it more and more difficult to ignore Norton's impending indictment.
Obama isn't the leader of ACORN.
He's just one of the people who trained their employees.
How could that hurt him?
"But I notice the right-wing noise machine is shifting into overdrive to make Obama the public face of ACORN. Just this week we began seeing Republicans spouting the new party line that Obama is the "leader" of ACORN, and thus responsible for its actions."
No one with actual critical thinking skills will buy it. They're preaching to the choir on this one. Only the truly stupid will believe it - for proof, I give you Anonymous at 11:11 a.m.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0909/Study_Medias_been_wrong_on_ACORN.html
