Zachary Roth September 29, 2009, 11:39 AM

One point that often gets overlooked in the current freak-out over ACORN, is that the US attorney firings were, in part, a different manifestation of the same Republican-driven campaign to discredit and sideline the group that we’ve seen recently.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night interviewed David Iglesias, and reminded us that Iglesias was fired in large part for not pursuing bogus voter fraud cases tied to ACORN. The New Mexico GOP, along with Karl Rove, understood that hampering the registration of poor and minority voters was crucial to boosting Republicans’ chances in the minority-heavy state. And that pressuring law enforcement to bring voter fraud cases implicating ACORN, despite the lack of evidence, was the best way to do it.

Watch the video:

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