ACORN: THE OTHER SUPERVILLAINS WITH SUPERPOWERS

We all know that right-wingers think Guantanamo terrorists are terrifying supervillains who'll put every American's life in danger if they're allowed to set foot on U.S. soil, even manacled and under extraordinarily heavy security. As it turns out, they're not the only people to whom right-wing bedwetters ascribe superhuman powers:

The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.

... The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?"

... Among Republicans, ... only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.

... In order to believe that Obama wasn't the true winner of the 2008 election, one would have to think that ACORN (and perhaps other groups) stuffed ballots to the tune of over 9.5 million votes, Obama's national margin....

Of course, right-wingers routinely ascribe superpowers to people they don't like. Bill Clinton -- who couldn't get a health-care bill passed, couldn't get gays in the military approved, couldn't retain congressional majorities, and couldn't have illicit sex without getting impeached -- was somehow powerful enough to have dozens of people killed and get away with it; Barack Obama is believed to have similar powers.

And now we have SuperACORN. (As you may also know, Doug Hoffman is raising funds with a letter claiming that ACORN stole the recent election in New York's 23rd congressional district, even though, as the local Watertown Daily Times points out, he has "provided no evidence to support his claims." I supposed he'd argue that ACORN is so powerful that empirical evidence of the deceit may not even exist.)

If there are any responsible journalists out there and they'd like to perform a public service, they should go up to NY-23 and just report on the vote-counting process -- specifically addressing the question of whether ACORN is even a significant factor in local elections, much less whether it can pump thousands of fake votes into the system while all electoral participants just twiddle their thumbs. (I don't care what Erick Erickson or Glenn Beck thinks, I just don't believe all the locals, across the political spectrum, would simply look the other way and overlook the fact that the fix was in.) Such a report wouldn't change anyone's mind on the right, but the more wingnuts whine, the more likely it is that swing voters will start to believe what they say about SuperACORN. This nonsense shouldn't be ignored. It should be debunked.