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June 9, 2010
New book says ACORN will be back
Politico
by Ben Smith
ACORN, the community organizing group which collapsed earlier this year under the weight of a furious conservative assault, aims to reconstitute itself under a new name after the midterm elections, according to a new book on the group.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, as it is formally known, could not survive the embarrassing videos produced in 2009 by guerilla journalist James O’Keefe that appeared to show ACORN workers advising a would-be pimp and effectively dissolved into its local chapters.
But strong local ACORN chapters swiftly regrouped under new names, like the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and New York Communities for Change. Those groups “will retain ACORN’s commitment to building national power and are beginning discussions” about relaunching a national organization some time after November, John Atlas writes in his sympathetic new history of ACORN, “Seeds of Change.”
...The book also offers a portrait of a group with a powerful reach, into, for instance, New York’s embattled Working Families Party, whose chief is a former ACORN organizer. Two ACORN organizers, Madeline Talbott and Keith Kelleher, started Project Vote, the organization that gave Obama his start in Chicago politics.
And in New York, ACORN emerged as a major player —and deal maker — in the real estate industry, playing a central role in one of the largest projects in the city’s history, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: When it comes to shilling for Bruce Ratner, the more seeds change, the more they stay the same.
Posted by eric at June 9, 2010 10:23 PM