Rig:

I challenge you to identify exactly the relationship between Barack Obama and the ACORN group.

If you do pin down the facts you will find, I believe, that Obama was in no wise associated with their offenses.

"Discredited Republican voter-suppression guru Ken Blackwell is attacking Barack Obama with naked lies about his supposed connection to ACORN.

• Fact: Barack was never an ACORN community organizer.
• Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee.
• Fact: ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992.

In his capacity as an attorney, Barack represented ACORN in a successful lawsuit alongside the U.S. Department of Justice against the state of Illinois to force state compliance with a federal voting access law. For his work helping enforce the law, called "Motor Voter," Barack received the IVI-IPO Legal Eagle Award in 1995. (For more about Barack's career, check out our Obama bio.)

Ken Blackwell is best known today for disenfranchising Democratic voters in his dual role as Ohio Secretary of State and chair of George Bush's Ohio campaign in 2004. To see him shed crocodile tears for the integrity of the vote while making accusations about Barack and ACORN with absolutely no basis in fact is disturbing.

Blackwell's attacks against ACORN and community organizers continue a vile Republican pattern of mockery and viciousness against this noble profession. Community organizers are the very individuals Republicans should be celebrating for helping people to help themselves rather than depending on the government."

A