Democratic Party and its candidates, far outnumbering the contributions of other unions during his last two election cycles. SEIU contributed $65 million to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry. In 2008 SEIU sponsored with the Center for American Progress (CAP), the first Presidential election forum, on health care, and required all candidates seeking the union's endorsement to “Walk A Day In My Shoes” including Senator Barack Obama as a home care worker Hillary Clinton as a nurse, and Joe Biden as a school maintenance worker, and have a plan for universal healthcare. The union spent another $85 million on Democratic candidates in 2008; $60 million going toward the election of President Barack Obama, with a significant chunk of that money funding door-to-door canvassing and other GOTV efforts, as well as voter registration. Stern along with Harold Ickes, Ellen Malcolm, Steve Rosenthal, and George Soros, and other activists founded and funded America Coming Together (ACT) the largest independent expenditure in history at that time for grassroots organizing in an effort to defeat the re-election of President George Bush. Stern has been the most frequent visitor to the White House since Obama's election. Between Inauguration Day and February 23, 2011, Stern visited the White House 53 times. And SEIU's political organizing and advocacy changed the lives of workers in state after state. As Harold Meyerson wrote in the LA Times, "Andy Stern has arguably been the most influential non-Californian in the affairs of California in the past 15 years...Stern has shaped the state’s politics and much of its economy." Healthcare Stern is referred to as one of "the chief architects of healthcare reform" in Modern Healthcare magazine, ranking in the top 10 of the 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare. Stern has been named to Modern Healthcare's annual "movers and shakers in healthcare" list for five years in a row. SEIU poured millions into a group called Health Care for America NOW!, which, at times, fought strongly for universal healthcare including single payer. Stern was an ardent supporter of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Media and Internet Andy Stern, as SEIU President, was a constant figure in the news. He was on the covers of The New York Times Magazine, Fortune, and Business Week, featured on CBS 60 Minutes, on Fox as the Power Player of the Week, CNN, and the Washington Post Stern embraced political organizing via