Felons for Obama

The LA Times has an item on Barack Obama specifically targeting the black vote while trying not to alienate white voters.

Of course, buried deep in the story is how he's using the radical group ACORN to do this along with the allegedly non-partisan NAACP. Meanwhile, there's a huge effort on to register convicted felons and those who've been sentenced yet are not yet serving time.

Change!

In an ironic twist, the Obama campaign can thank Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist for helping register convicted felons.

In a political twist, Democrats can thank a Republican for empowering one new group of voters: Florida felons. Gov. Charlie Crist last week announced that, thanks to a new rule he enacted, about 115,000 felons who had completed their sentences had become eligible under his administration to have their civil rights restored. Liberal groups such as People for the American Way hope to track down even more who could have their rights restored in time to permit them to register and vote in November.

Experts say felons are disproportionately black and, if they can be found, more likely to be Obama backers. This provides a huge potential; about 1.1 million felons in Florida were ineligible to vote in 2004, according to a 2006 book by sociologists Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen. Here too the potential for gains has risk: It could open a door for Republicans to portray Democrats as soft on crime.

The push for new and nontraditional voters is so targeted and aggressive that an NAACP official in Ohio said her organization plans to pursue individuals who are incarcerated but who have not yet been tried or sentenced and, therefore, under state law, remain eligible to vote.

The group is also tracking felons who often don't realize that, in Ohio, they are eligible to vote as soon as they leave prison.

Ex-offenders are "just everywhere," said Jocelyn Travis, who heads the Ohio NAACP's voter outreach program. "People who have a felony or criminal background are throughout our community, and they don't realize that they have the right to vote."
...
In addition, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups, led by the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is trying to register 1.2 million voters -- with a special emphasis on blacks.

While the NAACP is nonpartisan and its officials say their efforts to register new voters are not specifically designed to help Obama, they say there is an added excitement among potential new voters.

I wonder how the reporter kept a straight face with that last part.

The NAACP is nonpartisan?

As for ACORN, they and Obama go way back.

What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama.

This is a story we’ve largely missed. While Obama’s Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill. In fact, Obama’s Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the few stories where Obama’s role as an Acorn “leadership trainer” is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama’s ties to Acorn.

Update: Boy, it's really nice to know the media has done such a thorough job vetting Obama. Check this doozy out from Gateway Pundit. Speaking of hardcore Communists, they're crawling all over Obama's website. Good thing he'll be reintroducing himself to America soon. Maybe he can toss the current incarnation under the bus, even though a bus running over an empty suit won't cause much of a ripple.