Today, the Democratic Party's Platform Drafting Committee will hear testimony from national experts on issues from health care to the economy, trade policies and energy production. Then over the weekend they'll listen to the concerns of local citizens, building on more than sixteen hundred small platform meetings already held around the country, and decide which policies to support as part of the initial platform draft.
National platform director Michael Yaki says that the committee chose to meet Cleveland for a reason.
Yaki: "We believe that Cleveland and Ohio are a city and a state that have been part of the American Dream in the past, and need to be part of the American Dream for the future. We know that there are a lot of people hurting in Ohio, we know that there are some success stories as well - If we can meet the challenges of Ohio, we can meet the challenges of the entire nation."
Once ratified on Sunday, the draft will be sent to Pittsburg where it will be revised and voted on next weekend by the full platform committee before being announced at the Democratic national convention.