America Coming Together scaling way back, may be closing up shop in Wis.

America Coming Together (ACT), which built the largest voter mobilization campaign in Democratic history in Wisconsin and 11 other battleground states last year, is "scaling back" its operation almost all the way to zero.

The Wisconsin office seems likely to close, since the Washington Post reports that ACT "this week began sending e-mails to most of the 28 people who make up the remaining ACT staff warning that their paychecks would stop at the end of August. All the state offices have been, or are soon to be, closed."

The Wisconsin operation, run by Tamara Pogue, was huge last fall, conducting door-to-door canvasses that targeted a half million voters and helped drive turnout 20 percent above projections in some areas of the state, but had shrunk to a handful of staff since the election.

"Presently, it is unlikely that we will be able to maintain our existing structure in Wisconsin; however, those decisions will be made as we continue to evaluate our position," ACT's national office said in a statement.

Billionaire George Soros was ACT's main financial angel, but the group said it raised a total of $142 million from more than 100,000 donors last year. Steve Rosenthal, former political director of the AFL-CIO, ran the organization. The Post says Soros was disheartened by John Kerry's loss in the presidential race and has closed his checkbook. Rosenthal will stay involved with ACT but also do other consulting work, the story says.

"[W}e have found that it is extremely difficult to raise the kind of money necessary to sustain a voter mobilization organization this large in the off-year. Thus we have concluded that it is necessary to substantially scale back ACT's operation," the group's statement said. "ACT was the right organization to accomplish this work in 2004. Over the next several months we will review models to determine the best ways to move forward into 2006 and 2008."

ACT said it will "continue to conduct an in-depth review of the 2004 data - including an in-the-works precinct-level analysis of the battleground states. ACT will also be using the 2005 elections to conduct research which will help Democrats prepare a blueprint for winning an increased share of exurban voters in 2006 and turning out "infrequent voters" - which will help provide the keys to 2006 and 2008 successes."

The ACT numbers from 2004 were impressive. In 12 battleground states, ACT opened 78 field offices with 2,600 full-time staff, 3,269 hourly canvassers and 80,000 Election Day workers. Over a nine-month period, ACT workers had 7.1 million face-to-face conversations with voters, knocked on 16 million doors, made 23 million phone calls and sent 15 million targeted mailings.
It also registered 450,000 new voters and built voter files including individual data on 63.5 million voters in 15 states.

Presumably, ACT or some other group will rise from the ashes in time for the next presidential election in 2008. But the news is bad for Wisconsin Democrats organizing for 2006.