Kaplan suggests that Sen. John McCain’s voter-fraud charges against ACORN might be motivated by a desire to undermine the legitimacy of an Obama presidency and deter future political participation by African- Americans.

While Obama’s voter registration effort is a part of his presidential campaign and entirely separate from ACORN’s, the McCain campaign and its surrogates have continued to falsely link Obama to ACORN.

“The reason that it is [more intense] is because Obama is black, that’s the difference,” former Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.) said, adding that the attacks have longer-term implications. “This is a good way of raising the race card without raising it.”

“If [Obama] loses, two things happen. [Republicans] still have the race issue and then the black community becomes turned off” to electoral politics, Coelho said.

In Kaplan’s piece, political scientist G. Calvin Mackenzie points to historical precedents. He argues that the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, who both won contested elections, were legitimized by the fact that their opponents stopped crying foul.

McCain might be hoping to avoid a repeat.

Check it out yourself.

Kaplan comes to us after serving as the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram’s Washington correspondent. Before that, Kaplan spent five years writing for The Hill. Check out his first post on The Independent Streak.