Common Cause must have donor money to burn.  In Ohio, we’ve reported, a private group put billboards all around the city simply stating the law as written in lawbooks – voter fraud is a felony.  In response, protest rallies have been held at the billboard.  These protests have invoked race, as can be expected. 

Now Common Cause completes the story.  They have announced they will be spending money to put up billboards in response.  Critics of the original billboards allege that simply stating what the law says serves as a voter intimidation plot. 

I wonder if they are missing the point.  It is just as plausible to me that this was an effort to get left leaning interests in Ohio to overreact, blow time, blow resources, chase squirrels on the eve of an election.  By spending a few thousand dollars, the original sponsors have succeeded in entirely diverting the attention of the “civil rights” activists in Cleveland who should be knocking on doors instead of moaning about billboards.  Instead of talking to voters, they are talkng to the media about a billboard that factually states the law.  And Common Cause, instead of spending hard-won donor dollars to advance their broader purpose, are blowing it on reactionary billboards that will tell people what they already know – they can vote on November 6. 

When one side chooses to act and spend $x and y hours, and it causes their opponents to spend $X*3 dollars and Y*4 hours, who is the winner?

Someone familiar with these sorts of fights once wrote: “The enemy’s imagination is capable of causing them to overreact to what they think you will do.”  That may be the story of this election, how the predictable hard wired responses of these groups, and frankly the Obama campaign, resulted in them taking their eye off the ball and overreact to imaginary threats.  Whether videotapes on the eve of a debate, or billboards in Cleveland, the pattern is repeating.

It may be that Common Cause and the Lawyers Committee may have fallen for it also, to the detriment of their donors.