DURING THE PANIC

Posted at 8:07 p.m. ET

One of the worst things about any panic is that it diverts attention from other things, equally important, that are happening at the same time.  We now have a kind of panic in the financial markets.  I am not a financial expert and make no judgment as to when this volatility will end.  But one thing is clear:  It is diverting attention from other matters.

One of those matters is the fact that, Wall Street or not, we will elect a president within the next month.  That president, if current trends continue, will be a man who has gone virtually unexamined by a press that approaches him on bended knee.  And so, as Americans worry about the financial crisis, factors in our election are slipping by us.  One of them is the potential for significant voter fraud.  Fortunately, Investors Business Daily, one of the sanest publications around, will not be panicked into avoiding this question:  Is ACORN stealing the election? 

It's a legitimate question to raise now that the FBI has raided the offices of the nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Obama and John McCain are running neck-and-neck. ACORN has registered bogus voters in both states.

The group's voter-registration fraud is rampant, and authorities plan a nationwide sweep of ACORN offices to collect records.

In Nevada, state officials say the fraudulent registrations included forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team, including quarterback Tony Romo.

"Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada," Secretary of State Ross Miller said, "and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4."

Well, at least the fraud is creative. 

In Missouri, one ACORN registrant named Monica Rays showed up on no less than eight forms, all bearing the same signature.

Look, she's just a public-spirited citizen, that's all.

In Kansas City, 15,000 registrations have been questioned, and last year four ACORN employees were indicted for fraud.

In addition, ACORN officials have also been indicted in Wisconsin and Colorado. Investigations against others are active in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

An attempt to suppress the people.  Don't you think?

What does all this have to do with Obama, besides the fact that he'd be the beneficiary of most, if not all, of these new votes?

For starters, Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for "advance work.")

What's more, Obama worked as executive director of ACORN's voter-registration arm, Project Vote, in 1992. Joined by two other community organizers on Chicago's South Side, Obama conducted the voter-registration drive that helped elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the Senate that year.

Come on.  The ACORN people were just guys who lived in the neighborhood.

The next year, 1993, Obama joined the civil-rights law firm Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, where he sued the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN to implement the federal "Motor Voter" law, which the GOP governor at the time refused to do. Then-Gov. Jim Edgar argued, presciently, that the Clinton law would invite voter fraud.

Just doing his job as a lawyer.  Right?

ACORN's corruption is not just out in the field, as they claim. There's a pattern of corruption from the top down.

McCain would be wise to start preparing a challenge to voter registration rolls should he lose the race in a close contest. He'd be crazy not to contest the results in light of these events.

But you know what will happen.  McCain will be charged with racism, and he'll back off.  That's the tragedy.

October 9, 2008.