Public Policy Polling's most recent survey of the Massachusetts Senate race brings some troubling, but unsurprising news. A full 25 percent of respondents say that they “think ACORN will try to win the election for Martha Coakley.” Only 38 percent of respondents think the group won't try to hijack the election; 37 percent aren't sure.

Actual voter fraud is extremely rare. Nonetheless, a full quarter of Massachusetts voters think that a community activist group whose employees occasionally engage in admittedly sloppy voter registration work (which doesn't turn into actual voter fraud, since “Mickey Mouse” doesn't end up making it to the polls on Election Day) is going to swing a Senate race.

This is nuts, but as I said above, ultimately unsurprising. Fox News and its right-wing-noise-machine-comrades have spent years demonizing the group, talking up sketchy “voter fraud” claims that were trumpeted by Republican leaders. Meanwhile, they've used ACORN as a consistent scapegoat for various national crises. And they trumpeted Andrew Breeitbart's dubious ACORN document dump claims and his heavily edited videos of low-level ACORN employees.

As Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott wrote of the poll - proving a point different than the one he perhaps thought he was making:

Such results perhaps should not come as a surprise, considering the past two years of reporting on the dark side of ACORN, including the organization being charged with voter registration fraud and other election-related abuses in more than a dozen states during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Washington Examiner's expose of federal funding of ACORN, and the sensational revelations by Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com of ACORN workers offering advice on mortgage fraud, tax evasion, and establishment of a brothel featuring underage girls smuggled into the country from Latin America.