Jim Crow? What a Squawk.

Apparently, the Democrats are shaking in their boots:

"The Republican Party has finally found the outer edge of political cynicism; it's located in Macomb County, Mich. Operatives there have figured out an upside to the foreclosure crisis roiling black neighborhoods: It enables mass voter-registration challenges and thereby offers a powerful opportunity to suppress the vote in Democrat-leaning districts.

"An enterprising journalist for the independent-media site Michigan Messenger exposed the party's plan to exploit foreclosures last week, prompting local leaders to feign outrage, claim to have been misquoted and threaten a libel suit. Those denials notwithstanding, the Obama campaign has asked a federal court to issue an injunction against any use of foreclosure filings in registration challenges, just in case. As general counsel Bob Bauer put it, 'They can tell it to the judge.'

"But while the details of the Michigan plot may be uniquely noxious, the broader tactic—known as voter 'caging'—is a 50-year-old Republican dirty trick that is rooted in century-old voting laws designed to skirt the 15th Amendment. A series of legal challenges had finally driven voter caging into remission by the 1990s. But in 2004, desperate Republican operatives facing a huge Democratic turnout revived it with great success. And they're redeploying it widely in 2008.

"[...]"

OK, first, if you don't live at the address listed in your voter registration anymore, you shouldn't be voting there anymore. There is absolutely no crime in pointing that out. If you move, if you get kicked out, if you get foreclosed, you have to change your address on your drivers license--and your voter registration. That's just how it works. It looks like the Dems are reaching to me. Palin has them shaking in their boots, and they don't have anything to go on, so they twist it up with a nice little spin in their favor. Sound familiar? I thought so.

And, second, if the Dems were the ones on the other side, how would the news be portraying this? I'd imagine it would be spun a little differently. Probably, more like this: "Dems help foreclosed and homeless change voter registration to ensure their rights to vote in the Presidential election." Poppycock.