ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where Senate candidates stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
… And talked the talk with 260 people who signed up to join ONE at the 23rd annual AIDS Walk Colorado. AIDS Walk Colorado is the Rocky Mountain Region’s largest and most successful HIV and AIDS fundraiser.
Fifteen ONE volunteers participated in this year’s walk and collectively raised $100 for HIV/AIDS programs. Congressional candidate and several members of his campaign staff also walked in support of ONE, happily donning ONE bands. Overall, 8,200 people participated in this year’s AIDS Walk and raised more than $400,000 dollars.
In addition, we’re proud to announce that ONE Colorado’s brother-sister congressional district leader team, Megan and Joe Marsh, participated in the walk and were even featured in the Huffington Post in advance of the event.
Congratulations to all of the volunteers who helped make this ONE Vote Colorado’s most successful event yet!
Be sure to connect with other ONE Vote 2010 Colorado members on Facebook and Twitter.
ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
On Saturday, ONE New Hampshire State Organizer Matt Flanders and I attended the Manchester GOP Picnic and ran into ONE friends both new and old!
As soon as we arrived, Matt spoke with Mary Pawlenty, wife of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who recently ran into some ONE members in Iowa. Many ONE members will recall that Tim made Minnesota a ONE State back in 2008 and has seen ONE in action on the campaign trail as we urged continued leadership in the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease in the poorest places in Africa.
We also ran into Kelly Ayotte and Jim Bender, who are both running for Senate in New Hampshire, and other prominent political and community figures who are ONE members and have helped us organize and take action to help save millions of lives in the developing world.
As many of the candidates addressed the crowd, Matt and I were able to speak with former Pennsylvania Sen.Rick Santorum — a longtime ONE supporter and true champion for the world’s poorest people. I talked briefly with Rick about his heroic efforts to fully fund the Global Fund while he was in the Senate, explaining to him how in 2006 I called my own senators in New Hampshire to urge them to support his amendment for the Global Fund.
Rick thanked us and ONE for our efforts and explained how American efforts in Africa are saving lives and winning hearts and minds across the continent, too. He even mentioned that the president’s funding request for the Global Fund seemed low, so I told him about our campaign to elevate the Global Fund.
As the picnic ended, I ran into New Hampshire Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne. After his fresh introduction to ONE a few weeks ago, I was able to talk to him more about ONE and present him with a copy of “On The Move,” the book that was made from Bono’s speech from the National Prayer Breakfast in 2006.
Ovide said that he was certainly familiar with ONE and would take time to read it and learn more about our efforts to fight extreme poverty and help save human lives in desperately impoverished places around the world.
Unannounced to us, Steve Forbes, president and CEO of Forbes, made a special appearance at the picnic. I was able to talk to him about ONE and some of our common friends as well as a partner organization, The Feed Foundation, which was founded by Ellen Gustafson and Lauren Bush.
You never know who you are going to run into when you are in New Hampshire. And you never know where our members will pop up in ONE shirts and ONE bands to help celebrate American efforts to save lives from needless and preventable deaths.
By using your voice, you can make sure that our elected leaders and community members know that good people from both sides of the political aisle and from all backgrounds, faith, and walks of life are taking action to make sure that our county remains the leader in the fight against extreme poverty in Africa.
Be sure to connect with other ONE Vote 2010 New Hampshire members on Facebook and Twitter.
The thermostat read in the high 90s when five ONE members from Springfield, Mo., and surrounding areas met with the Senate staff of Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Wednesday.
After walking several blocks in the heat, ONE members Mary Martin, Angie Mayle, Michael Carlton, Beth DeHaven and I met with Sen. Bond’s District Office Director Stacy Burks to discuss the Global Food Security Act, the Global Fund and GAVI.
Stacy was very helpful. She informed us that Senator Bond has always been extremely focused on smart power, and guaranteed that he would review the Global Food Security Act and act accordingly on the Lugar-Casey letter.
She also informed us that the foreign operations bill had been marked up last week and that the Senator had seen the success of the Global Fund and immunizations while recently in Southeast Asia, both of which are funded in that bill. She promised to give our message to the senator.
In December of 2007, after months of campaigning, ONE members got eleven Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to go On The Record with their plans to fight global poverty.
Among those eleven was Senator Barack Obama- who is now, as of last night’s election – President-Elect Barack Obama.
We still have a great deal of work ahead of us in our fight against extreme poverty and preventable global disease, but we expect these On-The-Record plans will play a key role in the years ahead. You can find all of his plans, and his exclusive videos to ONE members, on our On The Record microsite – and below.
On his legacy to the world’s poor: ( Recorded Dec. 2007)
On doubling foreign assistance: ( Recorded Dec. 2007)
(NOTE: In the wake of the economic crisis, Senator Obama has said that we “may have to delay [a doubling of foreign assistance] a little bit.”)
His message to ONE members: ( Recorded Dec. 2007)
On reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis:
I’ll double annual foreign assistance from $25b to $50b by 2012. I was a co-sponsor of the Lantos-Hyde Act that authorized $48 billion by 2013 for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. I support lifting the 33% cap on US contributions to the Global Fund, ensuring at least 4.5 million people are on ARV treatment by 2013, and preventing 12 million new infections.
On eradicating malaria:
I will support the goal of ending deaths from malaria by 2015 by building on the $1billion per year commitment to malaria in the recent PEPFAR reauthorization and dramatically expanding access to mosquito nets that for less than $6 will lower the risk of getting malaria and save lives. I will also expand access to ACTs – at the relatively inexpensive cost of $2 per dose – to treat people who get malaria.
On improving child and maternal health:
I will increase funding for child and maternal health and ensure that increases in other important areas – including HIV/AIDS – do not come at the expense of child health and survival programs. I will expand access to vaccinations, increase research into new vaccines, and expand access to reproductive health programs.
On achieving universal primary education:
Worldwide, an estimated 100 million children – including nearly 60 million girls – are not attending school. By 2010, getting these children into school could cost $10b annually. To meet our share of that sum, I look forward to signing the Education for All Act and will request the funding levels needed to carry it out.
On cutting in half the number of people without clean water or enough food:
More than 1b people lack access to clean water, and that number will increase with the impact of climate change. The US has an obligation to increase access to clean water and sanitation. Through increased funding of up to $1.3b annually and innovative programs like ‘play pumps,’ I will expand access to clean water and sanitation.
On additional commitments to the world’s poor:
I’ll make the Millennium Development Goals American policy. By the end of my first term I expect to see progress to meeting the MDGs, including reducing by half the number of people living on less than a dollar a day and suffering from hunger, and reversing the number of new HIV infections and malaria cases.
I want to share ONE’s ‘Final Report’ on Senator McCain’s and Senator Obama’s public commitments to address global poverty.
When you go to our On The Record microsite today, you can see McCain’s and Obama’s most up-to-date plans side-by-side. While you’re there, make sure to check out our exclusive video interviews with John McCain and Barack Obama.
ONE is a nonpartisan organization that does not endorse or oppose any candidate, but we do want you to know where the candidates stand as you go to the polls on Tuesday.
Having just returned from 2 weeks at the DNC and RNC conventions, I was browsing through ONE’s “On The Record” microsite, where anyone can learn the (current and former) 2008 presidential candidates’ plans for fighting extreme poverty.
Below see short video clips from Senator Obama, Senator McCain and Senator Biden. (Gov. Palin was not a presidential candidate in 2008 so we don’t have her on the record on global poverty on the site.)
Senator Obama on doubling foreign assistance:
Senator McCain on the global AIDS crisis and PEPFAR
Senator Biden on global poverty and U.S. security:
You can read more about all their plans on each of their individual pages on the site. (Obama’s page here, McCain’s page here, and Biden’s page here.)
Back in December, ONE members got all the presidential candidates to go on the record with their plans to fight global poverty. You can watch short video clips of Senator Biden discussing his plans on ONE’s “On The Record” microsite.
This was his response to the question: “If elected president, what would you want your legacy to be to Africa and the world’s poor?”
Below are his written replies to 5 questions from ONE:
On reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis:
“As President, I have pledged that I will provide at least $50 billion by 2013 to combat HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Millions of lives are at stake. We must make an investment that matches the scale of the epidemics.”
On eradicating malaria:
“Over one million people die yearly from malaria, a preventable disease. I have long supported efforts to develop a vaccine for malaria, and as President, I would expand these efforts. And I would make it a priority to increase access to prevention tools — we know they work. In the 21st century, no one should be dying from mosquito bites.”
On improving child and maternal health:
“The health and welfare of women and children are the foundation of every family, community, and nation. As a senator, I have introduced legislation to safeguard women and children in refugee and IDP camps and I am the author of the International Violence Against Women Act. As president, I would build on these efforts to address the interlinked health needs and human rights of women and children.”
On achieving universal primary education:
“I co-sponsored the Education for All Act and I have long supported universal primary education. Its the foundation of democracy, an investment in the future and the most powerful tool we have to empower women. Universal primary education is, simply put, a fundamental need.”
On cutting in half the number of people without clean water or enough food:
“Water born diseases are one of the leading killers of children under five. Hunger and malnutrition threaten the health and well being of millions more. Global warming will just make these problems worse. As Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have seen the consequences of unsafe water and inadequate food around the world. As President, I would invest in helping countries tackle these challenges as part of a comprehensive health and development strategy.”
On additional commitments to the world’s poor:
I am proud to have partnered with Bono on Jubilee 2000 debt relief. We kept at it and the result was the G-8 debt relief actions at Glen Eagles in 2006. I see it as a moral and economic obligation to keep money in countries that have such great need instead of paying off what are often the long ago acquired debts of dictators. As the world’s richest country, we have a moral obligation to increase our share of the effort to eliminate poverty. It’s also strategically smart because it’s in our national security interest to help prevent states from failing. The countries that we help have an equal responsibility to invest these funds in their own people.”
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