The Congressional Democrats' stampede to join Republican efforts to defund ACORN was stupid on many levels, as Paul Rosenberg explained in this post. Among other things, Rosenberg argued, Democrats empowered and validated the GOP's strategy of demonization. They may have thought cutting off ACORN's funding would cause Republicans to stop exploiting the issue, but of course, the opposite is true.

Congressman Steve King (IA-05) has been one of the leading warriors against ACORN for at least a year, and lately I've been getting anti-ACORN links regularly from his Twitter feed. I saw on Iowa Independent today that David Weigel of the Washington Independent cornered King at the How to Take Back America Conference on Friday. Weigel asked King about the "next natural target" in the campaign to "defund the left." King mentioned "ACORN and all of their other affiliates--SEIU's another one. I mean, their connection there is so tight, they're part of the operational arm, and they're part of the funding."

So get ready for a major right-wing effort to demonize the Service Employees International Union. King explained that "keeping the media on" this story will be a challenge for conservatives: "While we have an opportunity to make a run at ACORN, we really need to make a run at ACORN and all of their other affiliates, and push this thing as long and as hard as we can, because once the media turns their attention away, I don't know that they come back again."

Watch it here:

Update [2009-9-29 14:51:15 by desmoinesdem]: Right on schedule, here's Republican Congressman Mark Kirk (IL-10), a Senate candidate, calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to stop working with SEIU because the SEIU is too close to ACORN. More on that story is here.

Update [2009-9-29 20:12:17 by desmoinesdem]: Thanks to RT for linking to Kathleen Parker's latest syndicated column, which highlights ties between ACORN, the SEIU and taxpayers.