Carpetbaggers Wanted

04/15/2008
STL Today

Ward Connerly, the California-based anti-affirmative action crusader, is looking for "circulators" willing to travel to Missouri "to earn big bucks" collecting signatures on his petitions to end affirmative action programs here.

In an e-mail posted Friday in a blog on the National Review Online, Mr. Connerly says opponents of his deceptively named Missouri Civil Rights Initiative "are going to extremes to stop petitioners; including intimidation, screaming and stealing petitions." He asks that anyone wanting to help the petition drive "call to find out how you can have your travel expenses covered. Circulators have the potential to earn $1,000 per week (going rate $1.25 per signature collected)."

Boy, there's a grass-roots effort for you. A guy from California e-mails a New York-based conservative website trying to recruit a couple dozen more carpetbaggers to join his false flag operation. Things must not be going too well. Good.

Mr. Connerly, an African-American business executive, rose to prominence in 1995 when, as a member of the University of California Board of Regents, he led a successful anti-affirmative action drive in his home state. Since then, he has tried, with varying degrees of success, to expand his efforts into other states. Missouri was one of five states targeted this year. Last week, the organization dropped its effort in Oklahoma when the secretary of state's office there found too many duplicate signatures on petitions.

To get his amendment on the ballot in Missouri in November, Mr. Connerly must collect about 140,000 valid signatures across at least six of the state's nine congressional districts before May 4.

Mr. Connerly's effort in Missouri is opposed by a coalition of good government, civil rights and business organizations. They say that his group not only is deceptively named, but that it also would cause great harm to the state's business climate. Affirmative action doesn't guarantee anyone a job, merely the chance to compete fairly for a job.

If one of Mr. Connerly's carpetbaggers asks you to sign a petition "ensuring civil rights," just say no and wish him a nice trip back to wherever he came from.