Strippers for Kerry Launch Voter Drive

Alexandra Kerry's decision to go nearly topless at the Cannes film festival earlier this week must have been a big winner with one of her father's fastest growing constituencies: Strippers and the strip club owners who employ them.

Turns out, the exotic dancing industry is lining up firmly behind the Massachusetts Democrat because they think he'll be better for business than President Bush.

Michael Ocello, president of the Association of Club Executives, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that his group believes Bush's brand of conservatism discourages people from patronzing the topless trade.

"We must do everything within our power to help ensure that Bush and his ultra conservative administration are removed from the White House," he urged in a letter to nearly 4,000 club owners. "If we are to survive, we must act now."

"I used to be a Republican, but now with all this, it's changing my views," said 21-year-old topless dancer Shalyn Kay, who told the AP that said she's afraid of losing her job if Bush is reelected.

In Ohio alone, the strip club lobby has registered about 2,000 Kerry voters in just a few weeks, according to ACE chapter president Luke Liakos. He calls Attorney General John Ashcroft "the American Taliban."

Liakos is working to form a pro-Kerry coalition in Cleveland between strip clubs, other adult businesses such as adult bookstores and gay clubs.

"It's not to say our industry loves John Kerry or anything like that," said Dave Manack, associate publisher of E.D. Publications, which publishes Exotic Dancer magazine, in an interview with the AP.

"But George Bush, if he's re-elected, it could be very damaging to our industry."

Informed that strippers and their employers were lining up behind the Democrats this year, Republican National Committee spokeswoman Heather Layman told the AP, "I have to admit that the strip club owners are not a group we targeted."

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