ABSENTEE BALLOTS NOT GETTING TO CUYAHOGA VOTERS? Yesterday the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition sent a letter to Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Michael Vu, warning that "there is the potential for many thousands of absentee voters to be disenfranchised because they have not received their absentee ballot".

Judy Gallo of the Coalition tells me that as of 1:45 Saturday there's been no response from Vu to their letter (or any media coverage, for that matter).

I've posted more info to Ohio Voter Suppression News.

THE GIANT SUCKING SOUND OF BIG BOX RETAIL: Brewed Fresh Daily links to a Chicago study on the local impacts of big box chains vs. local retailers. Since attracting chain retail into city neighborhoods is a declared objective of the City of Cleveland, this could not be more important.

Local businesses give 70% more back to you than chains

Another good reason why wooing big boxes to the neighborhood ain't all it's cracked up to be:

A new retail study for a Chicago neighborhood discovered that for every $100 spent on an independent business, $73 went back into the local community. However, for every $100 spent on chain businesses, only $43 went back into the local economy.

The study, completed by Civic Economics, the leading firm in the country for conducting these kinds of analyses, found that independents had 26% more of their staff locally, bought more than twice as much of their goods and services locally, kept more profits locally, and spent more on local charities.

OHIO VOTER SUPPRESSION NEWS: Several Ohio bloggers are contributing to a new blog aimed at documenting efforts to keep voters -- especially urban, low-income, minority voters -- away from the polls on November 2. It's organized by Hypothetically Speaking, with several contributors including Jesse of Pandagon and Mark Adams of Dispassionate Lib. And me. Keep watching...

GOP VOTER CHALLENGERS FACING INDICTMENT IN SUMMIT COUNTY?

A must-read story in the Beacon-Journal this morning. The headlines:

Summit board rejects 976 voter challenges

Officials say four Republicans had no proof of impropriety.

Angry citizens blast accusers

Read the whole thing, it's incredible. (You may need to register with Ohio.com to get to the article. Believe me, it's worth the minute it will take.)

And then check out MyDD, who's got some of the hearing transcript. In the end, there was talk of indictments and GOP challenger Barbara Miller was taking the Fifth. (When reading the transcript, be aware that Summit Elections Board members Alex Arshinkoff and Joseph Hutchinson are from the GOP. Arshinkoff is the county Republican Chairman.)

It makes you wish the Dems had just let the hearings go forward in Cuyahoga County. I'm sure some people here should be sweating jail time, too.

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS: In the Plain Dealer Tuesday morning...

The Republican Party challenged about 35,000 voter registrations statewide, saying many were fraudulent. But that number dwindled on Monday, when the party withdrew about 4,700 challenges in Hamilton County because of discrepancies with the precincts listed on the party's forms, said Jason Mauk, a Republican spokesman.

Election officials also reported errors with 2,800 challenges filed in Franklin County.

Others found that some voters were legitimate and had updated their voting records recently. About 100 of the 900 voters challenged in Lucas County appear to be valid so far, said Paula Hicks-Hudson, the county's election director.

Some of those challenged included active military personnel who are stationed overseas.

"We fully expected there would be some legitimate voters mixed in," Mauk said. "We filed these so we can clear these up prior to Election Day."

And from the Washington Post...

One irony of the GOP's challenges in Franklin County and Montgomery County is that many of those challenged are overseas military members -- often Republican supporters -- whose mail cannot be forwarded, officials in both counties said.

A DIGITAL VISION FOR CLEVELAND: Cleveland Digital Vision's second annual membership meeting will take place this afternoon at Tri-C.

A year ago the organization adopted its "Program to Narrow Our City's Digital Opportunity Gap". You can read or download the whole thing here. But this seems like a good time -- especially in light of the city's recent agonizing about poverty -- to post the part of the document that describes our actual vision of Cleveland's possibilities, four or five years from now.

OUR DIGITAL VISION: 2008

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay
In 2008, Cleveland is one of the most computer-literate and networked cities in the U.S. As a result, our residents are becoming better educated; more people are engaged in civic life from their blocks to City Hall and beyond; and thousands of formerly low-income Clevelanders are making good livings in a growing regional technology sector, in IT-enhanced jobs in traditional industries, and in their own small businesses.

A typical home in every neighborhood of the city has at least one modern computer with a high-speed connection to the Internet and other local networks. Everyone in the house knows how to use it.

Computer literacy and network access have become parts of every neighborhood’s strategic plan. Knowledgeable neighborhood leaders collaborate with citywide institutions to assure their residents excellent IT training and technical support.

State of the art network infrastructure is available in every neighborhood and is being used innovatively -- for small business development, recreation, parent-teacher contact, distance learning, access to government resources, community organization, grassroots media.

Schools, community computer centers, workforce trainers, colleges, political and business leaders are engaged in a common effort to get our entire workforce certified “IT literate”. We’re able to measure our progress because a common certification tool for basic computer and information literacy is used throughout the community. By 2008, we’re at least halfway to our goal.

The number of adults without high school degrees in every neighborhood is being significantly reduced. The number of adults and youth in every neighborhood enrolled in higher education is being significantly increased. The “average worker” in Cleveland now has some postsecondary education and intends to get more.

As a result of these changes, thousands of formerly low-income Cleveland residents are now competing for skilled, well-paid employment in the region’s growing IT and biotech sectors, as well as in health care, banking, insurance, and advanced manufacturing. And new small businesses are emerging from Cleveland basements, garages and storefronts.

That’s the future we want to invent. How do we get started?

CLEVELAND PUBLIC POWER RATES... SOMEBODY FINALLY NOTICES!

I don't have a subscription to Crain's Cleveland Business, so I didn't notice until today the page-three article by Jay Miller that begins:

City-owned Cleveland Public Power has lost its traditional price advantage against longtime rival Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., a unit of FirstEnergy Corp.

Which is too bad, because I'm quoted in the second and third paragraphs as the discoverer of CPP's price parity with CEI.

The article is here but it's subscription-only, so I can't quote a lot of it without too much typing. But I'll give you this much:

City utilities director Julius Ciacia and CPP commissioner James Majer acknowledged last week that Mr. Callahan's price comparison is accurate. The city's rates and those charged by CEI to city residents now are about the same, the officials said, though they fluctuate on an almost month-to-month basis... Whether a customer in Cleveland uses CPP or CEI, however, the rates are widely regarded as the highest paid in the state.

Now I've been blogging about CPP's rates to a readership of (maybe) two hundred of you for more than a year, so of course I'm grateful to see the story finally break in the real media. Unfortunately, most of Miller's story lays out an "explanation" of CPP's rate inflation that comes straight from city officials, with little fact-checking. Here's paragraph four:

The rates of the two utilities have converged because of CEI's response to electric deregulation in Ohio and efforts by CPP to upgrade its system, which had fallen into disrepair.

Now reading that paragraph you'd have to infer two things: First, that CEI's "response to deregulation" was to lower its rates, bringing them closer to CPP's; and second, that the rising components of CPP's rates have been capital investment and maintenance. And indeed the rest of the story (including quotes from Ciacia and Councilmen Roosevelt Coats and Jay Westbrook) supports those two general ideas... neither of which is true.

I'll go into both of those subjects in the next couple of days. But for now, it's nice to see that the City of Cleveland has finally 'fessed up to having the highest electric rates in the state. A good first step...

PLAIN DEALER ENDORSEMENT: So, the story seems to be as follows:

The Plain Dealer editorial board voted by a substantial majority to endorse Kerry over Bush. Whereupon, publisher Alex Machaskee (as predicted by Roldo weeks ago) overruled the board and ordered a Bush endorsement. This was originally expected to appear in this morning's paper but has now been delayed until next weekend. (See Editor and Publisher yesterday.)

There were emails flying all over town yesterday asking people to write the PD in protest, but this evening the Kerry/Edwards people are discouraging any more hostility.

Daily Kos yesterday had a story linking the endorsement decision to Machaskee's Serbian loyalties and consequent hatred of Kerry advisor Richard Holbrook. Now there's a good basis for the only daily newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio to pick a side in the presidential election! Maybe Machaskee got a call from the Crown Princess Katherine.

Of course this all begs the question: Who cares what the PD says? The paper's endorsement of Bush over Gore in 2000 didn't stop Gore from winning Northeast Ohio by almost enough votes to put him over the top statewide. I'd say this is one more thing the Kerry campaign should avoid wasting its last-week resources on.

P.S. An email from Mark Adams on this subject caused me to go to his blog, Dispassionate Liberalism, where I haven't been in quite a while. Man, he's been busy!

"VOTER 'FRAUD'/VOTER SUPPRESSION OPERATION" BY OHIO GOP?

Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo today:

It's looking more and more clear that the GOP is looking to pull in Ohio the same voter 'fraud'/voter suppression operation they tried to pull two years ago in South Dakota. Probably they'll be doing it in other states as well, but Ohio is clearly ground zero. Not altogether a surprise since they just sent their South Dakota get-out-the-vote chief to run things in Ohio.

We'll be posting more on this later today. But if you're interested in finding out more about what I'm talking about you can read up on the 2002 South Dakota drama by running through the TPM archives.

Josh suggests that you search his archives for "Dakota fraud". Here's his search page.

NEW AT DIGITAL VISION BLOG... The mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles both call for wireless broadband networks to reach all their residents. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says the dreaded word "free"!

A LAST PRE-ELECTION LOOK AT THE RECOVERY IN OHIO: Bureau of Labor Statistics job numbers were posted yesterday. Here's the chart. You could take it with you when you vote...

DEMOCRACY PREVENTION: The Plain Dealer this morning headlines an attempt by the GOP to throw 35,000 registered Ohio voters off the rolls, including 14,000 in Cuyahoga County. And in the New York Times:

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots...

Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.

Ohio Democrats were struggling to match the Republicans' move, which had been rumored for weeks. Both parties had until 4 p.m. to register people they had recruited to monitor the election. Republicans said they had enlisted 3,600 by the deadline, many in heavily Democratic urban neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities. Each recruit was to be paid $100.

The Democrats, who tend to benefit more than Republicans from large turnouts, said they had registered more than 2,000 recruits to try to protect legitimate voters rather than weed out ineligible ones.

MORE POLLS, OHIO TILT TO KERRY GROWS:

Ohio University/Scripps poll released today:

Among registered voters, Kerry leads 49 percent to Bush's 43 percent, with 2 percent saying they will support third party candidates and 6 percent undecided. Among likely voters (people who say they are committed to voting next month) Kerry's lead is 50 percent to 46 percent, with 3 percent undecided and 1 percent going to other candidates.

Gallup/USA Today poll, released yesterday: Kerry over Bush 50% to 44% among all registered voters, 48% to 47% among "likely" voters.

Meanwhile in Columbus, the rough stuff is starting.

POVERTY SUMMIT: George Nemeth has a pretty brutal evaluation of Mayor Campbell's second "poverty summit" session in the new Cool Cleveland.

Anyone who attended this summit to participate in solving Cleveland's chronic poverty issue was treated to a political dog-and-pony show, replete with a 45-minute long Powerpoint presentation chronicling what other groups around the city have been doing about the issue. It appears that the only thing the City of Cleveland has done is worked to open a school in the Empowerment Zone from 3-9PM to offer tutoring and recreation to students, job services and training to adults and support services for seniors. Too bad this isn't a new idea... the director of the EZ has been working on this initiative for months...

Um, the director of the Empowerment Zone works for the Mayor, right? So that means the Mayor's administration was working on this "old idea" several months before poverty got popular, right? So how does this convert to a rap on the Mayor?

Instead of mounting a PR campaign that coincides with the Mayor's re-election, why not roll up our collective sleeves and move from talk to action?

Personally I would be delighted to see the Mayor make a second-term campaign issue out of raising the incomes of low-income Clevelanders. That's the only way to get a mandate from the voters to do something significant. But look, if we want immediate action instead of talk, here's a proposal: Let's ask the Mayor to lead a high-profile campaign to pressure heavily subsidized private employers like the Marriott Corporation (the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, still tax-abated after all these years) to raise all their employees' pay to the City "fair employment wage" of $10 an hour. I guarantee that would lift hundreds of city residents across the poverty line. (Maybe some civic-minded organizations that are in the habit of holding conferences at these hotels could add their voices and rental fees to this effort.) And while we're at it, we could work to get Council to extend the Fair Employment Wage Law to major subsidized retail employers (who are currently exempt) before the city starts handing out abatements and loans to new malls and big-box stores.

I bet you could make a really great Power Point about that campaign.

NEW OHIO POLLING TILTS TO KERRY: Three of the five statewide polls of Ohio likely voters published in the last two days (October 17 and 18) show a narrow lead for Kerry, and a fourth shows a tie at 47% each. In all five cases, the gaps between the two candidates are less than the polls' margins of error. In other words, it's still a dead heat but there's a slight tilt in the Democratic direction.

FoxNews/Opinion Dynamics, completed yesterday, shows Bush 47%, Kerry 45%, 3% Nader. (Nader is not on the ballot.)

Survey USA, completed yesterday, shows Bush 47%, Kerry 49%.

ABC News, completed Monday, shows Bush 47%, Kerry 50%.

Rasmussen Reports, completed yesterday, shows a tie at 47%.

The University of Cincinnati's "Ohio Poll", completed Monday, shows Bush 46%, Kerry 48%.

Generally, incumbents need a 3-4% polling advantage going into Election Day to win. Also these are "likely voter" polls, which probably undercount the coming turnout of "unlikely" Democratic voters. So these results are good news for Kerry.

Now you know why Arnold Schwarzenegger is coming for a visit.

(Poll results are from 2.004k.com.)

NEW AT DIGITAL VISION BLOG: Digital Community at the Mayor's Poverty Summit... Gonick and Rourke at DV's Annual Meeting... clickable community tech centers... it's been a busy week. Read all about it.

IS CLEVELAND BIGGER (AND POORER) THAN THE CENSUS SAYS? Plain Dealer article this morning:

The nation's poorest big city has more people - and they have more money to spend - than official figures suggest, according to a study to be released next week.

The study concludes that Cleveland's collective buying power is greater than previous research indicates and that the city is an untapped market for retailers. "It shows there are disposable dollars in Cleveland neighborhoods that can support businesses and retail," said Daryl Rush, the city's community development director.

The study was done by Social Compact, a Maryland-based nonprofit that tries to show the hidden buying power in urban areas. It studies utility bills, credit reports, auto registrations and other sources to compile population and income estimates.

The group's findings, when compared with official census data, are then distributed to retailers to encourage them to invest in urban areas.

Among its key findings about Cleveland:

The city's population is much larger than official estimates, which claim 461,000 people lived here last year. Social Compact's study claims Cleveland's population is actually 588,000 - nearly a 29 percent difference.

Overall income in Cleveland is much higher than estimated - $7.6 billion, instead of the 2000 census estimate of $6.4 billion.

There is an unreported $828 million cash economy in Cleveland that is not factored into the city's collective buying power.

The story goes on to say that Mark Salling, Cleveland's demographics guru, doesn't think much of the new study, and the idea that the Census missed 100,000 people does seem pretty bizarre.

But there's another problem with the story's upbeat spin, if the numbers are quoted correctly -- it says the study shows we're even poorer than we thought!

Do the math: $7.6 billion in income split among 588,000 residents equals per capita income of $12,935. That's $1,200 less than Cleveland's per capita income as reported by the 2000 Census ($14,291). It's $1,100 less than our average 2003 income of $14,188, as reported by the recent American Community Survey -- the one that made us officially "the nation's poorest big city".

Hmmm... a study that finds that Cleveland residents make even less money, on average, than the Census told us. This is good news?

COMING TO A PRECINCT NEAR US: Josh Marshall reports today:

As we told you a few days ago, six Republican party staffers and campaign workers in South Dakota resigned over a burgeoning voter fraud scandal. Chief among them was Larry Russell, head of the South Dakota GOP's get-out-the-vote operation, the Republican Victory Program.

To date, no criminal charges have been filed. But the state Attorney General says the investigation is "continuing."

Today comes news, however, that Russell -- still under investigation in South Dakota -- has been reassigned to run President Bush's get-out-the-vote operation in Ohio. Russell will now "lead the ground operations" for Bush in Ohio, according to an internal Republican party memo obtained by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

And Russell's bringing along with him to Ohio three of the five other GOP staffers who had to resign in South Dakota and are similarly under investigation in that state.

DID THE CLEVELAND SCHOOLS GRADUATE HALF OF THE CLASS OF '04?

I looked at the Cleveland school levy campaign's new website yesterday, and was shocked to see a claim repeated in several places that the CMSD's 2004 graduation rate was 47%. (The site actually says that this was a near-doubling of a 28% grad rate in 1996, which raises its own big questions, but that's another story.) So I went to the Ohio Department of Education site and found their current report card numbers for the CMSD. (Start here, click on "Begin", click on "Graduation Rate" and keep going.)

Lo and behold, they're showing a graduation rate of 49.4% for the Class of 2004!

As far as I can tell, this is the only way to find the number... it's not on the 2003-2004 District Report Card, which lists the Class of 2003 grad rate (about 41%... hence my mistake in the chart here, for which I must now apologize.)

The campaign's use of 47% instead of 49% may betray some nervousness about ODOE's figure at the School Administration Building. And I'd still like to know where Byrd-Bennett is getting that 28% figure for 1996, since the last published version of the grad rate for that year was ten points higher. But neither of these points matters much compared to this: After losing 60-70% of every graduating class since the mid-90's and before, has the School District actually managed to get diplomas into the hands of almost half of the kids who started high school four years ago?

If so, the district -- and the kids -- deserve a loud, sustained round of applause. This would undeniably be major progress that should give a significant boost to the levy campaign.

So why is this bombshell hiding in the campaign literature, and not at the top of the Plain Dealer's front page?

DEAD HEAT IN OHIO: Three polls of likely Ohio voters published in the last week show the Presidential race in this state is dead even, with less than 5% of voters still undecided.

The following results are from statewide samples of likely voters conducted by telephone (the Columbus Dispatch also released a poll last Friday, but it was conducted by mail.) They are for a two-way race between Bush and Kerry... Nader is off the ballot in these polls, as he is (so far) in reality.

American Research Group, in a poll completed yesterday, found 48% Kerry, 48% Bush, 4% other or undecided.

Survey USA, in a poll completed Monday for two radio stations (one of which was Cleveland Channel 3), found 49% Kerry, 48% Bush, 3% other or undecided.

And Rasmussen Reports' seven-day tracking poll, completed Saturday, found 47% Kerry, 48% Bush, 5% other or undecided.

Remember, these results are for "likely voters" -- not all registered voters. Many people, including me, think the massive voter registration and turnout efforts by Kerry supporters this year will add a lot of "unlikely" Democratic voters to the final turnout.

Want to amaze and bore your friends with obsessively up-to-the-minute poll results? The information above is all from 2004k.com, one of a number of sites keeping track of state-by-state polling results on a daily basis. I also check out www.electoral-vote.com. But then, we all know I need a real hobby.

THE CANDIDATES FOR VICE-PRESIDENT DISCUSS THEIR RESPECTIVE URBAN POLICIES:

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, the Census Bureau ranked Cleveland as the biggest poor city in the country, 31 percent jobless rate.

You two gentlemen are pretty well off. You did well for yourselves in the private sector. What can you tell the people of Cleveland, or people of cities like Cleveland, that your administration will do to better their lives?

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, there are several things that I think need to be done and are being done.

We‘ve, of course, been through a difficult recession, and then the aftermath of 9/11, where we lost over a million jobs after that attack.

But we think the key is to address some basic, fundamental issues that the president‘s already working on.

I think probably the most successful thing we can do with respect to ending poverty is to get people jobs. There‘s no better antidote to poverty than a good, well-paying job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.

To do that, we have to make America the best place in the world to do business. And that means we‘ve got to deal effectively with tax policy. We‘ve got to reduce the litigation costs that are built into our society. We‘ve got to provide the adequate medical care and make certain that we can, in fact, create the opportunities that are vital to that process.

I‘d zero in, in particular, on education. I think the most important thing we can do is have a first-class public school system. I‘m a product of public schools.

And the president, his first legislative priority was the No Child Left Behind Act. It was the first piece of legislation we introduced.

We got it passed that first summer on a bipartisan basis. We even had Ted Kennedy on board for the effort.

And it does several things. It establishes high standards. It, at the same time, sets up a system of testing with respect to our school system, so we can establish accountability to parents and make certain that they understand how well their students are doing. And they have the opportunity to move students out of poorly performing schools to good schools.

It strikes me that that is absolutely the heart of what needs to be done from the standpoint of education.

It‘s also important, as we go forward in the next term, we want to be able to take what we‘ve done for elementary education and move it into the secondary education.

It‘s working. We‘ve seen reports now of a reduction in the achievement gap between majority students and minority students. We‘re making significant progress.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Gwen, your question was about jobs?

IFILL: It was about jobs, and it was about poverty.

EDWARDS: I thought it was about jobs and poverty. I hope we get a chance to talk about education, but that‘s what the vice president talked about.

Here‘s what‘s happened: In the time that they have been in office, in the last four years, 1.6 million private sector jobs have been lost, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. And it‘s had real consequences in places like Cleveland.

Cleveland is a wonderful, distinguished city that‘s done a lot of great things, but it has the highest poverty rate in the country. One out of almost two children in Cleveland are now living in poverty.

During the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.

During the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.

And what the most striking and startling thing is, they are the first presidency in 70 years—and I‘m talking Democrats, Republican, presidents who led us through World War, through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Cold War—every one of them created jobs until this president.

We have to do better. We have a plan. We‘re going to get rid of—by the way, they‘re for outsourcing jobs. I want to make sure people hear that, the fundamental difference with us. The administration says over and over that the outsourcing of millions of American jobs is good. We‘re against it.

We want to get rid of tax cuts for companies sending jobs overseas. We want to balance this budget, get back to fiscal responsibility. And we want to invest in the creative, innovative jobs of the future.

Well! I'm glad we got straight answers to that question.

200,000 NEW REGISTERED VOTERS: If you add up the numbers in the last few paragraphs of this morning's Plain Dealer story, it looks like new voter registrations in Cuyahoga County had topped 140,000 by the time the deadline passed last night. Judy Gallo of the Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition told me yesterday that the county's total is actually more than 200,000. The number in Franklin County is more than 90,000. Statewide, the PD story predicts more than half a million people added to the rolls for this election.

Pretty incredible.

The Ohio GOP can put on a brave face, but the fact is that most of these new voters were recruited by anti-Bush registration efforts in the big cities. This was far and away the most serious, professional VR effort in modern history. To get an idea of its importance, you only have to consider one simple fact: if 120,000 more Ohio Democrats had turned out in 2000, Al Gore would have won Ohio and would be in the White House today.

Of course, signing up to vote is one thing, and turning out to vote is another. In the past, newly registered voters -- especially in low-income neighborhoods -- have been among the least likely to actually show up at the polls. In fact, Cleveland has never had a particularly low percentage of our eligible adults registered to vote -- we just don't show up on Election Day.

This year, everything rests on changing that pattern. Instead of the 130,000 votes cast in Cleveland in 2000, the Democrats need at least 200,000 -- 60% of the city's adult population. Is this possible?

Yes, it is. There are at least two big differences between 2004 and previous years that make it possible:

First, every effective political player in town is on this case. Nobody -- not even the school levy campaign -- is obsessing about "likely voters" this year. The entire, unprecedented focus of all efforts this month will be the city's "unlikely voters" -- registered voters (new or old) who haven't voted recently. The newly registered are all either databased or soon will be; thousands of others have been canvassed in the last few months, and had their preferences and current contact information uploaded to the same databases. This is a new kind of voter ID. Its implications for a city like Cleveland are enormous, and not just in Presidential years.

Second, the pockets for this effort in Cleveland are probably the deepest in the country. You've heard people talk about the election being won or lost in Northeast Ohio? They're not kidding. A hundred thousand extra Democratic votes in Cuyahoga County are worth millions of dollars to the national Dems and their allies, and they're spending it... not on media, but on "the ground war".

Just one example: Move On PAC has just sent a couple dozen paid organizers into the county, opened two field offices, and is holding daily orientation meetings in each office for new volunteers to work on their precinct-by-precinct "Leave No Voter Behind" campaign. I went to the 7 pm West Side meeting last night... the office's second meeting of the day. It was standing room only -- over thirty volunteers, mostly campaign newbies from Move On's vast e-mail base, there to sign up for door-knocking duty in their own neighborhoods. At least ten of us agreed to be precinct captains, which means taking personal responsibility for a list of 150 "infrequent voters" in our own home precincts: finding and talking to them, getting them into the organization's web-based data system, and doing whatever it takes to get them to the polls on November 2.

Move On PAC has targeted 10,000 precincts in swing states across the country for this campaign. From what I saw last night, they seem to know exactly what they're doing... not surprising when you consider that this is the group that built a three-million-member email list from nothing, virtually invented online political fundraising for liberals, and taught Joe Trippi how to do politics on the Net. What is surprising is that this year in Cleveland, Move On's campaign is just icing on the cake... a final layer of new grassroots capability on top of an already huge, sophisticated turnout operation.

So, yes, all these new registrations really might turn into votes his year. If they do, John Kerry is our next President. And Cleveland politics is a whole new ball game.

GROWING A WORKFORCE: One of MaryBeth's students at Max Hayes shows off her MEMS homework. This is a whole other side of Cleveland's technology/entrepeneurism/jobs perplex... a seriously hopeful side. Go read.