Libby Pederson

This Saturday, the Iowa-based band the Nadas played a free concert at the 10th annual Des Moines Art Festival. There were over a thousand people crammed into every inch of grass, many were dancing and everyone was having fun.

The Nadas are long-time ONE members and big supporters of the Iowa ONE Vote ’08 campaign. During the show Mike Butterworth, vocals and guitar, wore a One Vote 08 t-shirt!

We set up some info at the merchandise table and walked around talking to people, handing out info and hundreds of wristbands. There was a lot of interest expressed in the campaign and some people even signed up to volunteer!

Overall it was a great concert, and thank you to the Nadas, and their fans, for their support!

Today’s Iowa ONE Vote ’08 launch was a great success not only for
Iowa but for the entire campaign so far. People from far reaches of
the state and beyond came out to help us kick off this great campaign
including Iowa native Jessica Vanden Berg who has been out in D.C.
running things for us.

It started off with a great performance by Tubabu, an African percussion band
that played before the speakers took the stage. Gov. Terry Branstad welcomed
the crowd to the event and spoke a few words about the importance of the campaign before
turning it over to Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson who emphasized the importance of
educating the public on these issues so that we can come together as one to help fight for the issues.

After Lt. Gov. Pederson, Natalie Sugira took the podium and told a
very heart felt story about her journey from Rwanda to the United
States back in 1990 and how she lost close family members to the
genocide in Rwanda. She spoke of friends of hers that managed to
survive the genocide only to die from HIV/AIDS to put a human face on
the struggle that we are fighting for.

Overall, about 100+ people were in attendance with many expressing their excitement and anxiousness
to start helping our campaign in anyway possible.

Perhaps the most unique part of the morning was seeing republican and
democratic presidential campaigns stand side by side at tables we had
set up for them to promote their candidate. It could have made for
some tense moments but everyone handled it in a very professional
manner. We in Iowa look forward to adding to the already great
successes of the ONE Campaign over the course of the next several
months.

This afternoon the Iowa ONE Vote ’08 team canvassed the East Village of Des Moines talking to shop owners and hanging fliers to promote tomorrow’s big launch. We also took some time to check out our new office space which is in the heart of Iowa’s political neighborhood and in the shadow of the state capital. We introduced ourselves to everyone, and overall the feedback from shopowners in the area was very positive! Those who were unaware of the ONE Campaign were very excited to hear about our work and excited that we would be in the same neighborhood. The East Village will be a great location to set up camp with all the campaign headquarters being within a couple miles of our office.

We are really looking forward to the launch tomorrow to get Iowans as excited as we are and to kick this campaign off to a great start!

Tomorrow, Iowa will launch our state’s ONE Vote campaign. If you live in Iowa, I hope you’ll join us.

Governor Terry Branstad and Lt. Governor Sally Pederson and ONE volunteers will be there to kick off this unprecedented bi-partisan effort.

Doors open at 8:45 a.m. at the Historical Building Terrace at 600 East Locust Street in Des Moines. The event starts at 9.

Come and be a part of history.