Senators Santorum and Wofford Join for ONE in PA
July 1st, 2008 at 12:10 pm | posted by FieldI’m happy to announce that ONE is forging some common ground here in the Keystone State.
Former Senators—and former political opponents—Rick Santorum (a Republican) and Harris Wofford (a Democrat) have signed on to serve as Pennsylvania ONE Vote ’08 co-chairs. As co-chairs, Sens. Santorum and Wofford will help lead ONE’s efforts here in Pennsylvania to showcase the opportunity the next president—whoever it is—has to make a lifesaving, game-changing difference in the fight against global poverty.
From Philly to Pittsburgh, I’ve already seen ONE’s message breaking through on the campaign trail. The candidates are fielding questions on how they, as president, will fight HIV/AIDS and malaria, help save the lives of babies and mothers from preventable diseases and work to put more children in school across Africa.
Now with Sens. Wofford and Santorum signed on, we are ready to turn up the volume on our efforts.
“I look forward to hearing from Senators McCain and Obama on how they intend to address these vital issues should they enter the White House,” Sen. Santorum told us.
Throughout their respective careers, Sens. Santorum and Wofford (although admittedly agreeing on little else) both shared a steadfast commitment to stepping up America’s efforts to alleviate global poverty and fight preventable diseases.
Sen. Santorum worked in the Senate to increase funding for global HIV/AIDS efforts, and, since leaving the Senate, has remained a vocal supporter of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This April, Sen. Santorum wrote an op-ed urging his former Senate colleagues to support PEPFAR’s reauthorization, writing, “It offers hope instead of hopelessness. It shows the world our heart and that America is a blessing to the oppressed and suffering across the globe. And it needs reauthorizing now.”
Sen. Wofford has spent a career as a champion of health care and civil rights. Under President Kennedy, he helped organize the Peace Corps. Also during his time in the Kennedy administration, Sen. Wofford traveled to Ethiopia with his family to serve as the Peace Corps’ Special Representative to Africa. More recently, Sen. Wofford oversaw AmeriCorps and other national service programs under President Clinton.
As Sen. Wofford told us, it’s nice that we’ve found some common ground in here in PA:
“It’s good to be working with Senator Santorum again on a cause like the ONE Campaign where we do not need to search for common ground—it is here in Pennsylvania and across all America, in front of us, beyond party and partisanship, calling us to work together for our common humanity.”
-Chris Geer
July 12th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Sorry, but I think it is completely misguided to ignore the political differences around the issues that the One campaign promotes, as some of these ‘unity’ campaigns do. Of course, nobody but a sociopath is publicly ‘for’ world hunger and disease, and certainly not politicians who want to get (re)elected. However, we don’t need meaningless ‘unity’ around these issues - we need actions that actually work,
Unfortunately, many ‘well-meaning’ programs like PEPFAR are laden with right-wing, pseudo-religious political agenda items, such as requirements for abstinence training, which have no proven value, and actually divert resources away from truly effective programs that just don’t happen to match some people’s ‘moral’ agenda. Meanwhile, the world;s poor are being devastated by climate change and sky-rocketing fuel and food prices because ‘moral’ agenda-laden politicians like Santorum voted against any kind of sensible energy policies. And let’s not even talk about the Iraq War, which has diverted hundreds of billions toward pointless destruction which could have been used to fight poverty and disease, meanwhile undermining the world economy. Why a decent guy like Wofford would want to share the stage with Santorum - who’s ‘moral’ agenda is directly culpable in the deaths of millions - is utterly beyond me.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Honi soit the dazzlingly buy cytotec dead hand daughters.