Barack Obama - ACORN and Project Vote

President Barack Obama's involvement with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and its voter regestration arm, Project Vote.

ACORN

Obama at Heartland Forum December 10 2007

Obama's affiliation with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, began in the early 1990s.

In the video to the right, Deepak Bhargava opens the Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum December 10 2007 - a forum exclusively for thousands of "community organizers" including ACORN personnel.

Obama promises to invite community organizers to the White House even before his inauguration, to contribute to setting his "agenda for change".

Project Vote political connections

Project Vote was and still is, the voter registration arm of ACORN.

During Project Vote, Obama met many of Chicago’s liberal fund-raisers. According to David Axelrod:

“He met people not just in the African-American community but in the progressive white community...The folks who funded Project Vote were some of the key progressive leaders.”

Obama met Axelrod through one of Project Vote’s supporters, Bettylu Saltzman, whose father, Philip Klutznick, was a Chicago shopping-mall tycoon, a part owner of the Bulls, and a former Commerce Secretary in the Carter Administration. Saltzman, a soft-spoken activist who worked for Senators Adlai Stevenson III andPaul Simon, took a strong interest in Obama.

“I honestly don’t remember what it was about him, but I was absolutely blown away...I said to several people that this guy, who is now thirty years old, is someday going to be President. He will be our first black President.”