Friday, August 8, 2003; Page A03

Labor, environmental and women's organizations, with strong backing from international financier George Soros, have joined forces behind a new political group that plans to spend an unprecedented $75 million to mobilize voters to defeat President Bush in 2004.

The organization, Americans Coming Together (ACT), will conduct "a massive get-out-the-vote operation that we think will defeat George W. Bush in 2004," said Ellen Malcolm, the president of EMILY's List, who will become ACT's president.

ACT already has commitments for more than $30 million, Malcolm and others said, including $10 million from Soros, $12 million from six other philanthropists, and about $8 million from unions, including the Service Employees International Union.

…A network of liberal groups has formed America Votes to coordinate the political activities of civil rights, environmental and abortion rights groups among others, and former Clinton aide Harold Ickes is trying to set up a pro-Democratic group to finance 2004 campaign television ads.

…The shifting focus of Soros, who is worth $5 billion and is chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, from the international sphere to the domestic political arena is considered significant.

In a statement describing his reasons for giving $10 million, Soros said, "I believe deeply in the values of an open society. For the past 15 years I have focused my energies on fighting for these values abroad. Now I am doing it in the United States. The fate of the world depends on the United States and President Bush is leading us in the wrong direction."

…ACT plans to concentrate its activities in 17 states, all of which are likely to be presidential battlegrounds: Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and West Virginia.