By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

Attorneys for ACORN — short for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now — were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.

Listen to this and then ask yourself whether McCain has disqualified himself to run for president.

Here's the "Joe the Plumber" story in a nutshell: Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, 34, of suburban Toledo, Ohio, stopped Barack Obama to complain about Obama's plan to raise taxes on people earning over $250,000. He said he was upset because he planned to buy his boss's plumbing business, which earns over $250,000, and he doesn't want to pay higher taxes.

But it turns out:

Last Friday, Senator McCain released an ad attacking ACORN's record on lending. Here is ACORN's response (PDF).

Here's who he is.

Obama: We don't need ACORN's help

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama responded Tuesday to the McCain campaign's efforts to link him to embattled community organizing group ACORN.

"We've got the best voter registration, turnout, and volunteer operation in politics right and we don't need ACORN's help," Obama said Tuesday in Ohio.

The Illinois senator added that ACORN was not advising his campaign, and echoed campaign advisors who have increasingly accused the GOP of trying to suppress voter turnout as Election Day nears. "What I want to make sure of, though, is that this is not used as an excuse for the kind of voter suppression tactics that we've seen in the past. Let's make sure everybody is voting, everybody is registered, everybody is doing this is a lawful way," he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5mdIPNB8t8

Last week, the McCain-Palin message was ugly: that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, implying Obama is therefore a terrorist himself. This incited ugly behavior by their supporters, who openly called Obama a "terrorist." Americans recoiled in horror, and Obama surged to a commanding 8% lead in the polls, which would produce an Electoral College landslide .