At this point, any half-aware voter knows that ACORN doesn't refer to "a single-seeded, thick-walled nut" (as per the American Heritage dictionary).
And the McCain campaign is making sure of that by repeatedly amping up the rhetoric linking the group, currently being investigated by the FBI, to Barack Obama.
(Despite McCain's own past support for the group, as evidenced by his attendance at an ACORN-hosted rally in 2006.)
Today, campaign mananger Rick Davis issued a statement demanding that Obama cooperate with the FBI investigation. And in last night's debate, McCain accused ACORN of "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
Today, the group fired back by releasing a report, "ACORN vs. McCain: The Real Story of the Financial Crisis 1999 to 2008," attacking McCain for his lack of warnings about the impending subprime mortgage crisis last year.
Austin King, the director of the ACORN Financial Justice Center, writes:
In casting blame on ACORN, Senator McCain demonstrated a true misunderstanding of the cause of the financial crisis and in so doing belied the notion that he is qualified to solve it. Indeed, in looking at the totality of their work, the only available conclusion is that ACORN fought with all its might for a decade to prevent this crisis while Senator McCain sat on the sidelines and cheered on the deregulation of the financial services industry that paved the way for the nation's economic collapse.
King concludes:
Given the dearth of Senator McCain's words and actions on the
predatory lending problem and the resulting foreclosure crisis, there are only a few occasions in which his actions and foresight in the leading up to this crisis can be judged. In each and every one of those instances, Senator McCain stuck to his professed economic philosophy of
deregulation. Although in recent weeks his economic philosophy has appeared more erratic and he has occasionally adopted a populist tone, his long tenure in the Senate has been defined by a consistent hostility toward government regulation and favoritism shown toward deregulation...Comparing the records of both ACORN and Senator John McCain, the only
available conclusion is that in the decade leading up to the financial crisis America faces
today, ACORN fought with all its might against the predatory lending practices and resulting
foreclosures that triggered the crisis, while Senator McCain took no actions to stem the crisis
while voting for deregulation.