Staking the Moral High Ground on Voter Suppression

Remember all the hand-wringing amongst Democrats as recently as 6 weeks ago, incorrectly asserting that Obama didn't know how to win a fight?   Me too. And I argued at the time (to anyone that would listen) that it was the critics themselves that didn't know how to win a fight.

The simple fact is that the Democrats don't have the stomach to fight dirty, and it shows.  So it never works.  When they're lucky they seem whiney or petty or both -- when they're not lucky they seem angry. Americans don't like angry. McCain's learning that the hard way right now.

On Friday, the Obama camp reminded us what they're made of, by taking the fight to the GOP on the voter suppression front:

The Obama campaign charged Friday that John McCain, in concert with the Bush administration, has embarked on a studied effort to disrupt Election Day in many states and suppress the vote.

In a conference call with reporters Friday, Robert Bauer, chief counsel for the Obama campaign, suggested that a flurry of fraudulent registration complaints recently, and a subsequent leak by FBI officials that the agency was investigating the incidents, were part of a coordinated attempt by McCain and the administration of President Bush to intimidate voters.

There's a fine line between clever and stupid, and in this case that line is control of the moral high ground. Too often, Democrats are embarrassed to point out that that's where they've chosen to make their stand. Republicans never make that mistake, even when their control of that ground is only illusory.

The ACORN offensive is a text-book example of Rovian politics: hitting your opponent hardest where you yourself are the most vulnerable. The major difference between the Obama campaign and the previous two is the recognition of this approach and the strategy to defeat it. They have neutralized the Rove attack with nothing less than a new brand of political jujitsu.

At the very least, the ACORN "scandal" is a red herring.  As CNN's Martina Stewart correctly reminds us:

Voter registration fraud is not the same as voter fraud, in which individuals attempt to fraudulently cast ballots. Voter registration fraud leads to inflated voter rolls, but has little effect on voter fraud.

But that's not the whole story.  In reality, this is just the latest news in the ongoing  scandal involving the firing of federal prosecutors under the Gonzales Justice Department.  Neither side can let up. This story is not going away. This fight will be the main story through Election Day -- possibly longer.