OKLAHOMA WATCHDOG - ACORN tactics revealed in discovered documents

Oklahoma Watchdog.org

By Andrew Griffin on September 30, 2009OKLAHOMA CITY – Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, said Wednesday he combed through documents from an abandoned local ACORN office because of reports of impropriety at other organization chapters. Oklahoma City-based news and investigative website Red Dirt Report discovered documents in an abandoned local office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in south Oklahoma City’s “Little Mexico” neighborhood.Investigators found computers, hard drives, documents, registration forms, I-9 employment information and boxes with return addresses to ACORN’s New Orleans home office, as well as a regional IRS office last October.Oklahoma Watchdog now has many of the documents and will reveal them here.Reynolds said, “The contents of the ACORN offices were offered to me late, last summer,” but he didn’t examine them in detail. “My other duties didn’t allow me to examine the tens of thousands of pages available until recently,” he said, adding that when he read national stories about video of ACORN appearing to advise illegal behavior, “I decided I’d more carefully examine it.”The information has been made available to the appropriate federal authorities, this website has since learned.Oklahoma Watchdog attempted to call ACORN offices in both Tulsa and New Orleans.ACORN, which receives millions in federal dollars for voter registration, cannot legally support one party. However, internal documents show ACORN “targeted” state legislative districts in 2007 and 2008, leading up to the presidential election.A “Power Plan” document begins: “Oklahoma ACORN has been virtually non-existent since its glory days in Tulsa, over 20 years ago. 2007 is Year Zero.”It continues with a five-year plan to obtain “power”:“Therefore, the route to power is twofold: First, build powerful city organizations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa that can control these municipalities. Second, become an influential organization by shaping a handful of strategic legislative districts that, by themselves, can change who controls the state legislature.”“(W)e will be seen as the force that is making Oklahoma a progressive state in the way that it was 100 years ago.”“By using this power to win significant changes for working people, by the end of our 5 years, we will have legitimized the progressive takeover of the statehouse and head into 2012 with a real possibility of changing what Oklahomans look for and expect out of their Congressional delegation.”Under a subsection titled “Politics and Elections,” in 2007 and 2008, ACORN was looking to take over State Senate District 43, which they referred to as “the biggest prize,” in hopes of unseating Republican Sen. Jim Reynolds. This district includes part of Del City, abuts Tinker Air Force Base, and portions of southern Oklahoma City and northern Cleveland County.The ACORN document notes that District 43’s south half will “prove difficult, with more Anglo, Republican and military families,” while the district’s northern half will “be more fruitful.”Other districts they focused on include: Senate District 33 held by Democrat Tom Adelson; House District 85, won by Republican David Dank; House District 87, held by Republican Trebor Worthen, and House District 93, held by incumbent Democrat Al Lindley.Jim Reynolds, reached while traveling, recalled the ACORN tactics used against him in 2008.“We knew back before the election that they had kind of targeted us,” Reynolds said. “But we didn’t know to what degree.”Reynolds said ACORN chose his opponent, a previously unknown Democrat he referred to as the “bogus David Boren” to differentiate from the president of the University of Oklahoma, to confuse voters.His opponent spent thousands of dollars on TV ads during Oklahoma Sooners football games and slick mailers, tactics Sen. Reynolds said politicians had not previously used in state Senate campaigns in Oklahoma.While Sen. Reynolds is aware of the information his brother Rep. Reynolds uncovered about being targeted, he said he is not sure if he will look at it due to “some painful memories.”“It was so intense the last couple of weeks … the dollars spent on the negative campaigning against me. There’s a lot of satisfaction winning the election last year,” he said.He said that he found it disturbing federally-funded ACORN and the national Democrat Party would come into Oklahoma and target him and others. He added it was that much more satisfying that he and his small group of volunteers were still able to win in spite of Obama’s and national Democrat Party voter turnout. Read the rest here.