McCain: ‘Did you think I would let you catch me without wearing this’?

Jul 25th, 2007 2:30 PM UTC
By Matthew Bartlett

You never know who you are going to run into on Main Street during Primary Season in New Hampshire. This is why I always travel with ONE bands in my pocket.

Today, Sen. McCain made a brief appearance in a downtown Nashua restaurant to talk with voters. I made the stop with a few ONE members to show support for the ONE Vote ’08.

I noticed Mayor Bernie Streeter and Commander Dalianis in the crowd (both are NH ONE Ambassadors), and a few local business owners that were at our ONE launch. ONE member, and staunch conservative, Kevin Keefe came with me and so did ONE member Brandon Laws who will be interning with Gov. Richardson this summer.

While wearing his ONE band, Kevin approached Sen. McCain and told him that he is a conservative that supports the ONE Campaign and noted President Bush’s past efforts to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty. He told Sen. McCain that it was important to reform the Farm Bill, especially the cotton payments, to allow the poorest people on Earth a way to trade out of poverty.

Brandon told Sen. McCain that it was important to save lives in Africa and offered him a ONE band. But Sen. McCain refused it. Instead he pulled up his sleeve and showed us the ONE band he was already wearing! He even told Brandon “Did you think I would let you catch me without wearing this”?

We were all stunned and thanked the senator for wearing the ONE band and urged him to fight global disease and global extreme poverty.

Afterward Brandon told me, “It makes you feel good to know that no matter where you fall in the political spectrum, there are candidates on both sides of the fence that are willing to fight to make the world better by supporting the work of ONE and by helping us put an end to extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa.

TAGS: ONE Vote 08, Sen. John McCain, The ONE Blog