Kerry backers bringing stars to Cleveland

[Kolesar]

Friday, August 13, 2004

Groups trying to unseat President Bush will bring political and Hollywood stars to Cleveland this weekend to boost their campaigns in Ohio.

America Coming Together, the high-profile group that pays people to mobilize Democratic-leaning voters here and in key battleground states, will hold its national conference to hone its fall strategy.
To rally its workers, Barack Obama, the Democrats' rising star and U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, will deliver the keynote address tonight. Former presidential candidate Howard Dean will speak Sunday to help close out the conference, which is expected to attract about 500 ACT employees from around the country to the Sheraton City Centre Hotel downtown.

On Saturday evening, actors Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon headline two fund-raisers for a separate group, Bring Ohio Back, also known as BOB, which was formed recently by two local Democrats to specifically rally Northeast Ohio voters to the polls for John Kerry.

ACT, which plans to spend $125 million nationwide on its voter registration and mobilization efforts, picked Cleveland for its conference because of Ohio's importance in the race for the White House, says spokeswoman Sarah Leonard. "Ohio is the battleground of the battleground," she said.

ACT and other left-leaning groups, such as MoveOn.org and the Media Fund, have put Ohio at the center of their campaigns, running aggressive voter-registration efforts and advertising campaigns critical of Bush. ACT, for instance, has spent more on its ground operations in Ohio - more than $1 million - than in any other state, according to a recent analysis of federal records by the Center for Public Integrity.
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