ACORN the new media?

Have you ever noticed that the media tends to be the scapegoat, whenever a politician or political party runs into trouble? I guess they're an easy target; after all, if you claim media bias, who isn't going to think 'Yeah, well, the media are biased'? In fact, that's a peculiarity that I have noticed inherent in both general sides of the political spectrum, conservative and liberal: both think that the media's out to get them.

But perhaps more telling about these political times is the recent shifting of the blame away from the media, toward another, even more fraudulent and dishonest target: ACORN. From Kelly McParland at the National Post's Full Comment:

ACORN stole my election

Public Policy Polling reports that U.S. Republicans are increasingly turning to ACORN as designated boogieman when stuck trying to explain another failure:

"Losing NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman became the latest in an increasingly long line of conservative politicians to blame his problems on ACORN yesterday despite the complete lack of evidence the organization played any role in his defeat.

"The Republican base is with him though. PPP's newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately. Clearly the ACORN card really is an effective one to play with the voters who will decide whether Hoffman gets to be the Republican nominee in a possible repeat bid in 2010.

"Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.

"Overall 62% of Americans think Obama legitimately won the election to only 26% who think ACORN stole it for him, as few Democrats or independents buy into that line of thinking."

I guess the international Jewish conspiracy doesn't rate any more.

Read it here.

Hmm...ACORN may have a harder and harder time finding what's left of its credibility as more and more Republican candidates lose their races. Perhaps there is a silver lining, then, to the Republican Party's continuing, eh...dysfunction after all.