Gaspard doesn't register on the media radar screen in the way that his immediate Bush-era predecessor, Karl Rove, did. But as the New Orleans-based ACORN has been implicated in a host of illegal schemes ranging from voter registration fraud to embezzlement to tax evasion, he may get there. That's because prior to assuming his current job, Gaspard, at least according to ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had been political director for the New York City chapter of ACORN under Bertha Lewis, who last year replaced Rathke as the group's chief organizer and CEO. What's more, he's worked closely with the ACORN-controlled Working Families Party and the largest local within the Service Employees International Union.

Political affairs director is a position at the top of the White House hierarchy. A dual role of bureaucrat and politician, it requires an ability to secure passage of legislation, develop a media outreach strategy, and win elections for his boss and his party. With the possible exception of chief of staff, no person in an administration provides a better window into the president's mind than political director. Karl Rove at times functioned as a stand-in for George W. Bush. So when President Obama hired Patrick Gaspard to be his political director, it was because Obama saw him as possessing the requisite loyalty, tenacity and networking skills. A closer look reveals Obama long has been part of that network. Indeed, without its help, his presidency would have unlikely.

President Obama long has been close to ACORN. While never formally a community organizer with the group, he has served its interests in a much more crucial way. In 1995, while as an attorney for the Chicago firm of Miner Barnhill, he was part of the team representing ACORN in its effort to block the State of Illinois from circumventing a federal court order to implement the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 - more commonly known as the "Motor Voter" law - signed by President Clinton. The Illinois State Board of Elections believed the law lacked sufficient safeguards against fraud. ACORN didn't just defend the legislation; it worked to create it - and little wonder. The organization this decade has been at the center of voter registration fraud investigations in more than a dozen states, with the result in several instances being guilty pleas by volunteers. The Motor Voter law thus was tailor-made for ACORN fraud. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit early in 1996 denied the state's motion on procedural grounds.

Obama is a common thug.  Read the rest.

NLPC