April 4, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
The community-organizing group Acorn may be shutting down, but many of the people running its local affiliates will continue their work through new groups with new names. And speculation is rampant about how—and when—these former Acorn affiliates will band together to form a new national organization.
Kevin Whelan, an Acorn spokesman, says most of the new state groups have modified their missions, and added new board members, and will need to decide on their own if they want to form a national network. “My sense is that they’re pretty focused on what they’re doing at the state level,” he says.
Amy Schur, executive director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, says a national platform will eventually make sense, as some issues of concern to the California group’s members—like immigration, heath care, and changes to the banking industry—are best handled at the national level.
“We’re just not there yet,” she says.
‘Public-Relations Trick’?
Conservative commentators who have been critical of Acorn suspect that the group is just dumping a soiled brand, and is already hard at work reinventing a new national alliance.
“It’s a public-relations trick,” says Matthew Vadum, senior editor at the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank based in Washington. “Acorn will step out of the spotlight while the heat is on but come back when it believes it is safe to do so.”
Dave Beckwith, executive director the Needmor Fund, which is supporting two former state affiliates, argues that conservative organizations and politicians may be among the saddest to see Acorn go.
“They are the ones that would most like to keep this brand alive,” Mr. Beckwith says. “They’ve raised a lot of money on it.”
