The 2008 Presidential Election has been a wild ride for American voters with all of the twists & turns, controversy, and even the loyal hard core support. It even included tactics that pushed the envelope.
And these tactics were expected by the G.O.P. (Grand Ole Party) and their Republican war machine.
But have the Dems & many Independents responded with the greatest "left hook" since Gen. Schwarzkopf threw the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps at the "Republican Guard" ?
Yes, Operation Squirrel Bait, which many call Acorn, is in full offensive attack mode !!!!!
In February-March 2008, Rush Limbaugh launched the most ingenius idea I have seen in my years of viewing elections. Now I am sure others may have done things like this in the past but Rush had a Microphone and millions of "soldiers" willing to do the "front line fighting".
From Wikipedia:
In late February 2008, Limbaugh announced "Operation Chaos," a political call to action with the initial plan to have voters of the Republican Party temporarily cross over to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Hillary Clinton, who at the time was in the midst of losing eleven straight primary contests to Barack Obama.
This was a call to battle amongst loyal Republicans, in order to either disrupt or cause unnecessary dollars to be spent prolonging the Democratic Race.
From Wikipedia:
At the point in which Limbaugh announced his gambit, Obama had seemed on the verge of clinching the Democratic nomination. However, Clinton subsequently won the Ohio primary and the Texas primary (while losing the Texas caucus and the overall delegate split) with large pluralities from rural counties; thus reemerging as a competitive opponent in the race. Statistics released by the state of Texas show Hillary Clinton won the primary due to a large number of Republicans crossing over to vote for her. Whether these voters were Operation Chaos Operatives or simply Republicans who preferred Clinton is impossible to tell.
I even remember listening to Rush as a guy named "Carl"(who sounded like Charles Barkley) begged Rush to stop Operation Chaos and even hinted it was fraudulous & illegal. I must admit I was laughing but I was concerned too.
That's when the CYBER UNDERWORLD had the rumblings of what to do.....should Dems cross over too?...Should Indys risk not voting Obama or Hillary just to vote in Romney?....No.....A COUNTER ATTACK WAS HATCHED !!!!!!
Many knew that there were groups going out across America in order to register voters. Acorn (The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) had subsidiaries who would also "GET OUT THE VOTE" in many urban areas. Most of these "workers" are paid based on the amount of completed voter registrations. Many are volunteers too.
But the "workers" want to get paid. So some (very few) not only registered new voters, they took some of the applications home and filled them out for "friends, family, uncles, baby daughters, Mickey Mouse, Herman Munster", and everyone under the sun. Of course this is wrong but like any other company, Acorn has to deal with inside theft. Acorn, to their credit, does due diligence and inspects as many registrations as they can. The counties, where these registrations are turned, inspects most of these to match them to live persons. A recent report had Acorn at over 1.3 million registrations with just under 10000 bad voter cards. Less than .007% have been found so far to be bad.
But see, voter fraud was not what "Operation Squirrel Bait" was about. It was about causing widespread panic as a response to Operation Chaos among the "RIGHT WING NUTS" like Rush, Hannity, Medved, Fox News, and the rest of the "squirrels". The idea came to an avid "Internet Hack" to leak the possibility of voter registration fraud in this election to the "right wing media outlets".
See, whenever anything has to do with things "urban" or "low to moderate income", the "Right" can't help themselves. Thru blogs & emails & rumors, the "Troops" knew the "Squirrels" would jump at this. It quickly became a FULL SCALE OPERATION TO SPEAD DIS-INFORMATION, PANIC AND FEAR among the "right wingers" that Obama is stealing the election. State after state is reporting some kind of "registration fraud"....even if only 2 to 100 voter cards bad cards are found.
Operation Chaos was a relative low cost battle for the Republican Party and it was an outstanding Operation. But "Operation Squirrel Bait" has worked to PERFECTION. Not only has it taken much of the focus off of Rev Wright & Ayers, and even Obama, but it has also cost the Republican Party millions of dollars to research and bring fraud allegations to court in many states.
And so FAR THEY ARE LOSING THE COURT BATTLES TOO !!!! LOL
Rush, Hannity, Medved & the rest of the Squirrels are wasting valuable AIR-TIME talking about Acorn.....LOL.
Adding in the Republican lawyer & court fees, and all the Fox News & "Right Wing Radio" airtime, I have to estimate they will have spent close to $100 million dollars for nothing. And some "hack" got this all going by blogging & forwarding an email to a radio show....LOLOLOL....."OPERATION SQUIRREL BAIT" has effectively gathered all of the "Nuts" into one place for all of us in CyberSpace to laugh at.
A drinking game has even sprung up with, "How many times Fox News cries about Acorn".
As I laugh along with the rest of my brothers-in-arms, I still have sympathy for Acorn, as they are being looked at with scruntiny. But they have always taken pride in the service they provide and they have ALWAYS turned in those among them who would cheat & steal from ACORN & the American people.
Like in any war, there is collateral damage. But Acorn will be stronger for it !
All I can say is the new Frontier in Warfare begins in Cyber Space.
And the best part of this is nobody knows if this true. It could be just some "hack" making all of this up.
But I guarantee you one thing, the next check the "GOP" writes to that lawyer for fees isn't made up. LOLOLOLOLOL