Spin Cycle

As widely reported, John McCain’s campaign has demanded Barack Obama’s ties to ACORN, an activist organization that runs voter-registration drives, be probed. Registration cards submitted by the group prompted fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri, and at least five other states — including some in the name of Dallas football players.

Bertha Lewis, ACORN executive director well known in New York City politics, issued a detailed rejoinder with Steve Kest, saying status quo forces were playing up isolated irregularities to deter voter registration.

Just to help keep the players straight: Lewis has been co-chair of the state Working Families Party. She drew paparazzi-style notice in 2005 by grabbing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s face and kissing him on the lips when ACORN and the city reached a certain participation deal with developer Bruce Ratner on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards project. That deal, preceding Bloomberg's last election, looked at the time like a nice deflection of support against the city's majority Democrats.

Seems like Bloomberg's found his own alliances with ACORN -- and Liz B reported last week that he's had his associates contributing to WFP too. Not to be New York-parochial, but should those links be investigated as well? Or does the McCain-Bloomberg cordiality rooted in the mayor's immense wealth bring with it an automatic immunity -- with ethics laws not yet caught up to the prospect of corrupt money flowing from, rather than to, the public official? The McCain people in the state were expressing concern about the group months ago but now its role is of course part of the GOP artillery. Interesting to see where it leads both before and after this election...

The photo's from a past cover of 'City Limits', whose Web site is here.