Stalling the ACORN investigation? The Democrats’ strategy to deal with ACORN scandal.

Democrats in Congress are now trying to put off any real investigation of ACORN in the House as per this article in The American Spectator. Maybe they think the scandal will fade away.  Maybe they just want to put off any harm (caused by the links between the Dem. Party and ACORN) till after the next set of federal elections in 2010.

I don’t think the scandal will go away anytime soon because of the following.

1. The Big Government website is inflicting the political equivalent of the death of 1000 cuts to ACORN.  Every time ACORN comes up with some spin (no matter how lame) to explain the videos being posted on that Website (in which ACORN staffers give advice to two undercover reporters on how to fund a proposed prostitution scheme) the website then releases another video killing the spin attempt.  I’ve never seen this technique handled so well and be so effective. It’s almost like Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football.
2. The MSN has been embarrassed (hopefully) by their failure to promptly jump on this story and the way they were taken in (lied to) by ACORN’s original spinning For years the MSN believed whatever they were told about ACORN. Whenever there was a voting/registration scandal the spin was basically “It’s only an isolated instance of misbehavior by low level staffers” and/or “the registration fraud really wasn’t significant” (i.e. you can’t prove we stole the election.) Eventually, the MSN will bring some of their resources to bear on ACORN and judging from what we’ve seen so far there will be a lot of grist for the mill. Aside from the wonderful videos at Big Government there is still the outstanding scandal of the embezzlement of $1 million (or is it more like $5 Million) by one of ACORN’s founder and the cover up of same. Then there is the matter of ACORN’s finances. Apparently lots of ACORN’s money was transferred between various accounts and/or affiliated organization seemingly haphazardly. My experience is that whenever a large organization plays fast and loose with its money someone somewhere will be dipping in the till. I think the investigation of the other scandals currently playing out will lead to the discovery of more instances of embezzlement/mis-use of funds.  Also, ACORN seems to have problems paying its bills/taxes.
3. Importantly, ACORN so far has shown itself to be completely incompetent at covering up their messes.  ACORN is used to getting a pass from the MSN and politicians so they haven’t developed sufficient skills/paranoia to allow ACORN to conduct a successful cover-up.  All of a sudden ACORN has stopped being a powerful political force and become prey.
4. Former staffers and other with ties to ACORN will start to turn on ACORN. This is already occurring but my experience tells me it will become much more prevalent.  Once a significant number of staffers turn there will be a free for all as everyone tries to make a deal /get immunity.

I think the leaders of the Dem. Party understand that their best strategy is to try to hold off the investigations as long as possible till after the 2010 elections and they retain enough seats to still control the House and Senate. If they retain control of Congress at least they can exert some control over the Congressional investigations of ACORN i.e. “control the fall”.  Unfortunately for the Dems this strategy it may not work since there are too many outside forces (republicans, bloggers, the MSN-reluctantly and maybe even some state AGs.) who will also be looking into ACORN.

Tags: ACORN, ACORN investigation, Democratic Party