Garnet Donkey

I wrote this post a few days ago, sorry for the delay in posting.

http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

This article came to my attention via one of my friends’ facebook pages the other day, so thanks to her for posting it.

If there is anything that proves that McCain is the enemy of the working class, it is the fact that his campaign is attempting to disenfranchise voters in Michigan whose homes have been foreclosed. Dirty tricks and voter suppression have been part of the Republican campaign playbook for years, but efforts were usually subtler and were aimed at minorities, because they were the easiest to identify, or registered Democrats, whose voter registration forms they could throw away. Thus, if the democrats struck back, they ran the risk of looking like they were favoring minorities, or looking petty and partisan. But this time, the Republican campaign has announced that they plan to use lists of homeowners whose homes have been foreclosed and keep these people from voting based on the fact that they no longer “live” in that district. Presumably, their motivation is that people whose homes have been foreclosed are more likely to vote for Democrats.

In an election that is more than ever about who is the candidate of the little guy, the working man, the blue collar white voter, sticking McCain with the fact that he is trying to suppress the votes of those working class voters who are fighting to keep their homes pegs him both with using the same old dirty politics of the Bush administration that Obama is reforming both with his ethics bill in the Senate and by refusing to use 527 groups or accept money from PAC’s, and proves that McCain is not the ally of working class voters that he pretends to be, and his campaign knows it. Obama needs to start hitting back in smart ways and controlling the news cycle instead of constantly being on the defensive, and this is the perfect issue for him to start with. New ad for Michigan: Obama, front and center, “Good evening. I’m Barack Obama. Thousands of Americans are facing foreclosure on their homes due to bad mortgages and predatory lending. Now, I’ve got a plan to help Americans refinance their homes and get out of debt, and to protect you from the kind of bad lending practices that got us into this mess. John McCain’s campaign in Michigan is creating lists of citizens whose homes have been foreclosed in order to prevent them from voting in their home counties, bogusly claiming that since they’ve lost their homes, they no longer live there. Why would he want to keep these citizens from voting? Because he doesn’t have a plan, and you know it. But lies and intimidation won’t work. Not this time. I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.”

-Cole