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Steele Fundraising Letter: Obama And ACORN Trying To Rig Census
Michael Steele is now raising money for the RNC using a familiar set of GOP memes: That Barack Obama and ACORN -- one of the great right-wing bogeymen of 2008, you might recall -- plan to rig the 2010 Census in order to to solidify Democratic control in 2012:
President Obama's old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban "community" organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a "partner" with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country.
...
Why is this important? The U.S. population has shifted in the last ten years. States like Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania (all states Obama won in 2008) have smaller populations, and states like Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina (all states that John McCain carried) have gained population.
The trend illustrates that urban strongholds, which favor Democrats, continue to lose population to more decentralized areas in states more likely to lean Republican.
...
We must not let the Democrats and their radical leftist allies falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections in their favor. Our democracy, and the principle of "One Person, One Vote" are in jeopardy.
Now granted, the Congressional reapportionment that will come after the 2010 Census will probably have a slight net shift in favor of states that John McCain won (and individually some blue states will gain, while some red states will lose). On the other hand, keep in mind that Obama won 365 electoral votes last year, and that the net shift will only be in the single digits.
So this whole point is meaningless, because the 2012 Republican nominee will have to actually take a big number of states back into the GOP column, with the reapportionment being nearly immaterial. It's also not true that the blue states have "smaller" populations -- the question is the rate of growth, relative to other states.
Full fundraising e-mail, after the jump.
Dear Friend,
It has become plain that when candidate Obama talked about change--he was talking about using the system to create permanent liberal control of the federal government.
Our Constitution requires we take a population census every 10 years.
"Ok -- so what?" you might ask.
Well -- the future shape of Congress, state legislatures and the balance of political power between states are at stake. This is because individual election district lines will be redrawn based on the Census figures.
The Census further determines changes in population and demographics across the country and has an impact on the amount of federal funds which are allotted to individual states.
It determines the number of Representatives each state has in the U.S. House and therefore the make-up of the Electoral College that will determine the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election.
It seems the Obama Administration has plans to rig the Census results.
President Obama's old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban "community" organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a "partner" with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country.
With this group's track record of coming up with countless fraudulent voter registrations in heavily Democrat areas to sway elections to ultra-liberals, you can be sure they'll be manipulating population numbers as well.
And after receiving millions in political payback from the Democrats' recently passed "Stimulus" Bill, ACORN's community organizers are eager to once again take action to aid their old friend in the White House.
Why is this important? The U.S. population has shifted in the last ten years. States like Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania (all states Obama won in 2008) have smaller populations, and states like Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina (all states that John McCain carried) have gained population.
The trend illustrates that urban strongholds, which favor Democrats, continue to lose population to more decentralized areas in states more likely to lean Republican.
If the Democrats and their friends at ACORN have their way, the Census will only "estimate" state populations and therefore be subject to political calculations. And surely their estimate will be far higher than the actual number of people, and voters, present.
We must not let the Democrats and their radical leftist allies falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections in their favor. Our democracy, and the principle of "One Person, One Vote" are in jeopardy.
Please help the Republican Party's effort to spread the word about the Obama Democrats' misuse of power and plans to end free and fair elections. Support our effort to get the word out about this threat and ensure an accurate, non-partisan Census by making a contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to the Republican National Committee today.
Your gift will also help support the recruitment and election of principled candidates who will defeat the Democrats in 2010 and pave the way to send Barack Obama packing in 2012. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Michael Steele
Chairman, Republican National Committee
P.S. Friend, we are working hard to expose the irresponsible and unethical actions of Democrats in Washington and their left-wing enablers, but we need your financial support to do this vital work. That's why I hope you'll take this opportunity right now to support our fight against bad leadership and bad legislation by making a secure online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to the RNC today. Thank you.
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Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
At least ACORN is only being accused of rigging a census here. That seems like an upgrade over the last claim that I heard: ACORN are trained goons, ready to force good, patriotic Americans into the FEMA death camps if the tea parties are more successful than the administration hopes.
April 9, 2009 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's the problem - IMHO, Mickey and Goofey need to be counted! They may be the only supporters the God-Owful-Party has come 2012.
April 9, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the one hand, true Americans must be sure these outrageous claims are always refuted. On the other hand, I think it's great that what's left of the GOP is being guided and influenced by wackos like Limbaugh and Steele. They will never get a majority of Americans to believe their lies.
April 9, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is dumb on so many levels. Probably the biggest misunderstanding here is that the population shifts to red states are good for Republicans. The reverse is obviously true; several of the states that Bush won both times but Obama won in '08 were vulnerable specifically because their rapid population increases shifted their demographics. All of the states Steele mentions above had thinner margins this time, and if they keep up their growth they'll just be less and less likely to keep voting GOP. The other suggestion, that population was shifting out of urban centers, is also just plain wrong. And finally, not to be a grammar jerk, but from the first line of the quote:
"President Obama's old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban 'community' organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a "partner" with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country."
His old friends has been chosen? Can I haz cheeseburger? Seriously, they don't have a copy editor at the RNC?
April 9, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who needs grammar when stirring up the fears of the base?
April 9, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a very, very good point. North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia went blue because their populations grew and their demographics shifted. None of these democratic pickup states got mentioned in the letter.
April 9, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Michael Steele is now raising money for the RNC using a familiar set of GOP memes: That Barack Obama and ACORN -- one of the great right-wing bogeymen of 2008, you might recall -- plan to rig the 2010 Census in order to to solidify Democratic control in 2012:"
/sigh
Geez, I'm finding it ironic that the GOP is now parroting "the Plan" as part of an effort to scare their base...oh wait, their already scared.
Who cares?
I don't.
The nutjobs are out, and as long as they keep acting like wide-eyed, spooky theocratic, warmongering sociopaths the longer they will stay out.
And that is a good thing.
April 9, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not surprising to see Michael Steele is standing up to make sure that the government continues to undercount minorities and poor people - depriving them of full political representation, a fair cut of many federal programs, and harming the jurisdictions they live in. I guess that's the kind of urban and suburban hip-hop outreach he's planning for the GOP....
April 9, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps the Obama administration should examine their position on assault weapons very carefully. The urban guerrilla warfare ACORN troops are waging against ordinary god-fearin' folk would greatly benefit from the capability to tote Kalishnikovs door to door. Not that birkenstocks and tie-dyes uniforms aren't intimidating enough.
April 9, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are all missing the point of the "code" language. Urban = non white's be they Latino's or African Americans or Muslim or Asian Oriental.
As white America goes below the 50% this threat continues to grow....
"community organization" equals non whites groups getting powerful = liberalism grows
Acorn = changing the power of disenfranchising non whites in votes
Census = power distribution.
April 9, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps the Obama administration should examine their position on assault weapons very carefully. The urban guerrilla warfare ACORN troops are waging against ordinary god-fearin' folk would greatly benefit from the capability to tote Kalishnikovs door to door. Not that birkenstocks and tie-dyes uniforms aren't intimidating enough.
April 9, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love it.
Love the assumption that if, say, a Democrat from New York moves to Georgia, they will automatically become "Southern" and will vote Republican. You cross a state's border, and immediately, the fog penetrates your brain and you will vote however you you are "supposed" to.
You can't make this stuff up.
April 9, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly what I was thinking. Texas and Georgia will both be "blue" states by 2020.
April 9, 2009 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The (mostly) amazing criminal activities which the Repugnicons keep accusing the Democrats of planning/doing, and the utter lack of ethics from the Repugs, along with the history of the last 8 years of Repug hegemony and crime, is just the reflection of what the Repugs would do, and frequently did. Since Clinton was still President for the 2000 election, the likes of von Spakovsky etc., didn't have the opportunity to do just what they're accusing the Dems of.
I guess that Steele & the others who keep bleating the mantra of "unfair," "unfair," "unfair," and charging the Dems of every manner of crime, are only responding to their own proclivities and intentions. It's obvious that, given the opportunity, the Repugs would do exactly what Steele is charging the Dems of. After eight years of astounding corruption and criminal activity, you'd think they'd be smart enough to just shut up, but they don't.
Maybe Congress should start looking at the Census Bureau for any "burrowing" righties - you know, those who will only want to count Christian evangelists in the census, as they're the ONLY Real Americans!
April 9, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. When I try to understand this behavior of the repubs, which is a dangerous thing to do, I often wonder to what degree they believe what they are saying. Do they really think that this is what Dem's are doing? And is that beacuse that is what they would do or have done in the past? My best guess though is that most of them know how rediculous this is. And in the end, sadly, it's what stirs up their base
April 9, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the psychiatric jargon, what the R's are doing is called "projection"--you blame or accuse others of that which you do yourself...they are masters at it, and their followers eat it up. So it's not just a reflection of what they WOULD do, it is truly what they already have done, but accuse the Dems of. Kind of like the adulterer who accuses a spouse of cheating on him/her...
April 9, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't disagree with you. However, I have a personal agenda with trying to understand my father's (white and 65) infatuation with this insane hyperbole. I know quite a few R's and they seem to truly believe that it's only the Dem's that are dissembling, whiny, and criminal. And I'm in NH where they are supposed to be 'fiscal' conservatives. I'm beginning to think that the tendency to lean to the right is correlated with (or caused by) _physical_ deficiencies in critical thinking skills.
April 9, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
ACORN talking points courtesy of Rush Limbaugh.
He DOES run the party.
Mike, he accepts your apology but don't expect any thanks from him for parroting his meme of the week. He expects total fealty.
April 9, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read a fascinating fact in Vanity Fair regarding the average age of Rush listeners and FOX News viewers.
Apparently the average age of Rush listeners is 67, and the average age of the FOX News viewer in somewhere in the 60s.
If true, those are amazing statistics. Undoubtedly, those listeners are overwhelmingly white.
So there is this group of white boomers and near-boomers who are retiring, who are becoming more reliant on the government teat, and yet see a rising tide of non-white city dwellers with black names or Indian names or (cue the Texas rep) confusing Asian names, and who just saw the bottom of their pensions and savings drop out.
This is the GOP base.
This kind of mailer-cum-xenophobic/racial/economic -pandering is going to look positively reasonable after these old white bitter gun-clinging-Jesus-loving clay-eaters start realizing that they are facing an impossible demographic, economic, and political tide that is threatening to wash over their ramparts with (in their case) alarming certainty.
April 9, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud"
At what point does this stretch into "Libel" terroritory? They are being flattly accused of rigging elections - something that's never even been taken to court.
I've heard Libel is very tough to take to court, is this true?
April 9, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay it is time to sue the RNC and Steele ( Steele however, doesn't have the intellect to have written the letter)--I think that these people should be sued. Freedom of speech does not include slander and lies.
April 9, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately or fortunately in this case freedom of speech does include the right to slander and libel.
The bar for libel/slander is significantly higher for public figures/ policy debates than it is if it involves private citizens. When an individual or an organization puts themselves in the public eye there are amazingly few limits on what can be said about them - virtually all of it is considered to be fair comment and therefore protected speech.
Think of the outrageous attacks, exaggerations, outright lies and borderline truths that have circulated about public figures in the past few years -- "Hillary killed Vince Foster," "McCain fathered a black baby out of wedlock," " George W Bush had a gay affair with the former mayor of Knoxville," "Sarah Palin's baby was actually Bristol's and they were trying to cover up the illegitimate birth," "John Kerry appeared with Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally and burned the flag," the list goes on and on and on. None of them would have succeeded had the object of the lie chosen to file a lawsuit.
It is both the blessing and curse of our political system that political speech is virtually free from legal restraints -- allowing for such outrageous lies to be protected by the first amendment.
For whatever it is worth, it also protects folks on both the left and right when we may overreach our claims about the opposition - I for one never actually had proof that Dick Cheney was personally profiting from Haliburton's war profits, that the 5 Supreme Court justices had political motivations when they elected Bush as president, that Larry Craig was a closet case (before it was proven), or any of the many other things I said and wrote because I knew/believed they were true.... but my right to say those things was protected.
I would argue that the best antidote to this kind of political speech is not to attempt to sue it into oblivion, but rather to call it out, belittle it, and use it to show what stupid desperate liars the Republicans actually are...
April 9, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
That settles the matter
Glen Beck is now the Fuehrer of the GOP
That party is out of control whack
April 9, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is time for Acorn to fight back with their own lawsuit, once and for all. Make the lying bastards prove every word.
April 9, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Law Firms looking for a high profile case should contact Acorn on this one. That would keep the RNC pretty bush for at least the next 3 to 4 years. It appears that Steele is going to get the RNC sued.
April 9, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure a lawsuit by ACORN would help so much, what with the persecution complex of the right and 'activist judges'. You don't think we'd be hearing the same shit even louder, with a "THEY'RE TRYING TO SILENCE US!" tacked onto the end?
April 9, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
While you are correct, demosaur, that is not a reason to not do it. These crybabies will always find something to whine about, no matter how creative they have to be. It is what they are. They have nothing else to offer. Oh, except for tax breaks for the richest Americans.
April 9, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
No ACORN office here and I still have not gotten my check from Soros - but I do start training on Monday for work for the 2010 Census.
Got sworn in and fingerprinted for it yesterday.
Sworn to secrecy on everything else.
April 9, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anyone believe that the RNC is really worried about the Census? If the RNC were serious about this being an issue, they'd be calling on their constituents to contact Obama and tell him to say no to Acorn. They'd have online petitions and ask people to tell their friends to speak up on the issue. Instead, they simply ask for money to help "get the word out".
It's all about the money. And, oh yeah, in addition to getting the word out about the Census being rigged, they'll use that money to help elect Republicans in 2010 and 2012. How transparent is that? I'm thinking that a win in 2010 doesn't do much for that Census rigging issue, but hey, maybe I'm confused.
I'd like to think that those receiving this email solicitation are smart enough to see through the spin. But fear seems to work for those on the right a great deal of the time so perhaps this will be effective in building the RNC coffers.
April 9, 2009 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. No. NO! Y'all are missing the point. We must all do everything we can to urge Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Steele, et al to urge their constituents to rebel against the census by refusing to participate (non-violently, of course.) Don't answer your mail! Don't answer your door! Don't let them know where you are and your true numbers! (They only want that information to take away your guns and sterilize your wives.) Repeat: DO NOT GIVE THE CENSUS ANY INFORMATION!
By refusing to participate and be counted, we'll show those socialists our real numbers!
Yeah, and then let us know how that worked out after the numbers are tallied.
April 9, 2009 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Years of right-wing radio, all trumpeting the same ideas and theories, have built up a dedicated subset of paranoid wackos who think they see "the writing on the wall" when it's really just a water stain that sort of looks like writing.
Steele makes good use of the passive voice: "it appears" that the DEMs are trying to rig the census.
"Hey. . . I just said he MIGHT be a vampire. . . and pointed out the danger that vampires pose to society. . . I never told anybody to put a wooden stake through his heart, so don't blame me."
April 9, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It has become plain that when candidate Obama talked about change--he was talking about using the system to create permanent liberal control of the federal government."
If only that were true.
And, well, at least he didn't try to use false flag terrorism.
April 9, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember this song from the mid060's?
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa.
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy
to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming
to take me away, ha-haaa!!!
To the happy home, with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket
weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes and they're
coming to take me away, ha-haa!!!
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time... (fade out)
Hey, buddy!
Yes officer..
You a head?
No, but I'm catching up, ha ha ha....
Every time I hear about repuglican's going off the deep end, like in this case, I see a mental picture of them all singing and dancing to that tune with dead seriousness.
April 9, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm so glad that Steele is around..It makes so much sense to have a bunch of dim-witted goons allegedly lead by a complete lunatic (and hip-hop star in his own mind)...
It's kinda like going to one of those small carnivals when you were a kid with the shooting-gallery booths where you tried to win a teddy bear for your best guy/girl....SO many targets..SO little time....
Yikes the list is getting long..Steele, Hannratty, Beckster, Limberger, Billo-the-clown, Bachmann (YEOWEEE), etc...I'm exhausted just trying to remember them all.... but they haven't uttered a single, verifiable FACT amongst them yet as far as I can tell...
April 9, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink