McCain-Palin and the Republicans are on the verge of losing this election and they know it.
That's why the right wing scream machine has turned the volume on ACORN up to eleven.
Nothing could be more predictable: When Obama wins they'll cry voter fraud. It will be the only argument they have left, so they're laying the groundwork for crying foul after the election now.
I was on the ground in Florida as a canvas director doing Get-Out-The-Vote in 2004. We covered the same turf as ACORN, who were working to raise the minimum wage in Florida at the time. My honest impression was that ACORN didn't pay very well and that some of their canvassers were not the brightest bulbs. Have some of their employees tried to pad their numbers by turning in bogus "Mickey Mouse" registrations? I wouldn't be surprised. Is that registration fraud? If proven -- yes. Is it voter fraud? No.
Only if Mickey Mouse shows up to the polls on Election Day to vote does it become voter fraud. The day you can show me evidence that Mickey Mouse votes have tilted the election we can talk about voter fraud in a serious way. I won't hold my breath.
Still, McCain is already whining that Mickey Mouse is going to magically hand Florida to Obama.
Of course, absurd arguments with no basis in reality are now par for the course for McCain-Palin, the team that brought you "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," "You can see Russia from Alaska," and "I'm pleased to be cleared of any hint of any kind of unethical activity there."
Surprise, surprise, in the bizarre McCain-Palin universe -- where Obama "pals around with terrorists" and McCain is a "steady hand at the tiller" -- Mickey Mouse is involved in a sinister plot to make Obama president!
Please. Do Republican candidates really want to talk about voting problems in Florida?
Even if an army of Mickey Mice voted in Florida, could that ever surpass the number of black voters that Republicans have tried (and succeeded) to suppress there for decades?
What about the double standard that allows thousands of legal resident Haitians in Miami to be denied citizenship while Republican Cubans are fast-tracked into citizenship?
What about the illegal "scrubbing" of thousands of black voters from the rolls that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris got away with in 2000, installing brother Dubya in the White House even though he lost by half a million votes nationwide?
Make no mistake: voter fraud is not why Republicans don't like ACORN. It's that they register a lot of poor black voters -- and the idea of poor black voters actually voting scares the crap out of Republicans.
They should be scared. They're going to lose. And when they do, I'm sure no sane person will buy the lame excuse that it's all Mickey Mouse's fault.