The ONE Campaign today joined a blogger conference call hosted by Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
The Governor fielded questions ranging from home schooling and No Child Left Behind to the Iraq War and Veteran’s Rights.
Here’s the question we asked:
As a man of faith, what do you see as the moral obligation of the President of the United States in addressing problems such as the spread of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and working to alleviate hunger? Do you support any of the issue campaigns such as ONE Vote ’08 that are working to bring attention to these problems?”
To which the Governor replied:
“It is a moral imperative. As the Gospel tells us, ‘unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required’,” a direct quote from the Bible (Luke 12:48). “While I don’t have the right as President to force others to act charitably, there are specific cases, especially in providing access to safe drinking water and addressing disease, where a President has a responsibility to take action.”
The Governor went on to explain that the reason he supports and endorses the ONE Campaign is that instability and desperation in the developing world can lead people to become part of terrorist or dissident organizations. Thus, addressing extreme poverty worldwide is critical to the security of the United States.
Thank you Governor Huckabee for answering our question and for helping the ONE Campaign save lives and secure our future.
It may be true that I am here in DC while a few of my other colleagues are in Chicago getting ready for the special YearlyKos panel we organized for tomorrow morning, Global Poverty: Creating Leadership for a New Foreign Policy, but what does a few hundred miles actually mean these days anyway? Thanks to YearlyKos in Second Life (YKSL), I am able to engage the “netroots” for ONE from here—or just about anywhere actually. More importantly, though, is that the attendees I am engaging can also be from anywhere, making the outreach possibilities nearly unbounded by geographical location.
Like ONE’s outreach in general, ONE engages with bloggers on all sides of the blogosphere, progressive and conservative. As we constantly repeat, some issues are just too important to play politics with.
Also on display at YKSL is the specially scripted ONE Console, giving away free ONE items and telling attendees how to get involved with ONE not only in their first life, but also their second one.
