Perkins Coie/Obama Fight McCain Over ACORNs

Apparently, the activities of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are now a matter of national import. The group, best known for absolutely nothing prior to a month ago, is now poised to “threaten the fabric of democracy,” according to Senator John McCain.

One might have expected the Obama campaign to take the knuckleball in the dirt, but there is only one October. Last Friday, the Obama campaign called in lawyers from Perkins Coie to harass USAG Michael Mukasey into harassing McCain to stop harassing Obama.

Perkins Coie partner Robert Bauer asked Mukasey to instruct special prosecutor Nora Dannehy to add McCain’s recent conduct to allegations of partisan misconduct within the Justice Department. According to The Blog of the LegalTimes:

[The letter] alleges that Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and the Republican Party made false claims of voting fraud as part of a Republican effort to influence the presidential election. The letter accuses Republican officeholders of calling on the Justice Department to investigate allegations of fraud, and Justice Department officials of spurring what he called “baseless” investigations.

The McCain camp responds after the jump.


Ben Porritt, a McCain campaign spokesperson, fired back at the Obama campaign:

“After a week of shifting stories and clumsy corrections in regards to Barack Obama’s connections to ACORN, the Obama campaign resorted to their now-customary heavy handed tactic of attempting to criminalize political discourse,” Porritt said in a statement. … “Today’s outrageous letter to Attorney General Mukasey … asking for a special prosecutor to investigate Senator McCain and Governor Palin’s public statements about ACORN’s record of fraudulent voter registrations, including in this week’s Presidential debate, is absurd. It is a typical time-worn Washington attempt to criminalize political differences.”

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Sigh.

With all of the real issues going on in the country, how does ACORN merit strong-arming the USAG, or responding to the strong-arming of the USAG? Fraudulent voter registration really isn’t important beyond the point where candidates are trying to get on the ballot. Unless McCain is going to try to get Obama knocked off the ballot, what is the relevance of ACORN? And if McCain isn’t trying to kick Obama off the ballot, why does the Obama campaign need to bother Mike “Don’t Call Me Alberto” Mukasey?

With all due respect to both candidates, let’s hope that this election is decided at the polls on November 4th, not in a courthouse 2 weeks later.

McCain Campaign Responds to Obama GC’s Letter to Special Prosecutor [The BLT: Blog of the LegalTimes]

Robert Bauer Letter to Michael Mukasey.pdf

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