On Thursday, Senator John McCain came to Iowa for the first time with new running mate Governor Sarah Palin.
The event was held at an air hanger in the Cedar Rapids airport and thousands of people attended, including many University of Iowa students in ONE T-shirts!
After the event, and after Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin toured parts of Cedar Rapids to see devastation from recent flooding, their motorcade pulled up to a long line of people, including ONE members, waiting for the senator and governor to board their plane.
As they walked through the line and shook hands, Senator McCain saw our ONE shirts and said that ONE is a wonderful organization and thanked us for what we do.
Next in the line came Governor Sarah Palin who shook hands with a ONE member who handed her a ONE band. She said “right on!” and immediately put on the band. (See our video). We were so happy to have represented ONE on Gov. Palin’s first visit to Iowa!
It felt like the first day of fall in Media, PA on Tuesday when Senator Joe Biden addressed a crowd of thousands of supporters at the Linvilla Orchards. The outdoor venue was covered with fallen leaves and the stage sat in front of a trailer full of pumpkins. Senator Biden and Dr. Jill Biden stayed to greet the attendees who sat on hay and picnic tables during the speech.
I handed Dr. Biden a ONE band; she thanked me enthusiastically and immediately put it on! When Senator Biden approached and I held out the white band he laughed, “I already have so many ONE bands. I need to start wearing one regularly!” Sounds like a good idea to me!
The ONE Campaign at Baylor University teamed up with Rock the Vote to encourage students to vote in the upcoming presidential election and emphasize issues facing millions of the world’s poorest people. After a one week delay due to Hurricane Ike, Baylor’s Rock the Vote concert was held on Wednesday, September 17 in one of the most heavily traveled portions of campus. Baylor ONE members tabled at the event, passed out ONE Vote ’08 information, and encouraged students to join the campaign.
The featured musical artist Trey Duck, Shapes Stars Make, and Sleeperstar wore ONE bands as they performed their music to a crowd of Baylor students. While the concert was going on, students were encouraged to depict what voting meant to them through their artistic abilities and sign a wall with messages of the importance of voting. Overall, the night provided a great opportunity to highlight the importance of voting and the ONE Campaign to hundreds of college students.
Sic ‘Em ONE!
-Justin Kralemann, President of the ONE Campaign-Baylor
This week Barack Obama held a rally here in Las Vegas, NV. We had a great showing from ONE members who wanted to hear more details about Obama’s plan to fight global poverty and disease.
With the economy dominating the current debate, global development was not discussed, but we were happy to be there and continue to make ONE’s presence known on the campaign trail.
On Tuesday we launched our new “Just ONE Question” campaign to get a question about global poverty included in next Friday’s presidential debate. In just 48 hours, over 45,000 of you signed the petition, putting us on the verge of surpassing our ambitious goal of 50,000!
Remember—since 1960, only 2 questions about global poverty have been asked in a presidential debate. We have it within our power to change that this year.
John McCain and Sarah Palin stopped in Lancaster, PA for a rally last week and local ONE members from Pennsylvania were ready. Wearing ONE shirts, we got seats directly behind the stage and were able to be in full view of the TV cameras broadcasting live nationwide.
Following the rally, we also spoke briefly with Ms. Palin and handed her a ONE band – to which she responded very enthusiastically and placed on her wrist. All in all, it was a great day for ONE PA!
Tyler Sangermano from the University of Missouri attended a rally with Senator Joe Biden in Columbia, MO last week and managed to not only ask the senator about his plans to combat extreme poverty, but also hand deliver a ONE shirt and capture on video the senator telling a great story about his wife and he thinking about ONE the night before he was selected to be Senator Obama’s running mate.
The audio is a little rough in this video clip, so I transcribed a few key bits of what Senator Biden says below.
First he talked proudly about how he
“shepherded through the new AIDS, malaria, and Tuberculosis proposal [PEPFAR] that went from 30 billion to 50 billion and by the way, George W. Bush deserves great credit.”
And then after Tyler handed Biden a ONE shirt, which he held up for the crowd, Senator Biden told this great story:
“When Barack Obama picked me and asked me to be his vice president, I talked [...to my wife]. And my wife told me the night before… I don’t know about you guys, but my wife is such a busy mother and grandmother and teacher…and all of the notes at our house are literally taped to the bathroom mirrors…so literally notes are on the mirror any where I shave.
And she had a ONE decal, you know the big decals you have like this? Only it was white with blue on it. And she had [written] underneath ONE, she had ‘squared’. That’s me. ONE Squared. Between Barack Obama and me we are going to ONE Square it.”
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