The October 7th debate between Senators Obama and McCain at Belmont University in Nashville will be a town-hall format in which the candidates will have to field questions on any topic from the audience and the internet. That gives you a really unique opportunity to submit your own ONE Questions for consideration. You can do so by following this link to the MySpace “My Debates” forum:

http://www.myspace.com/mydebates

In the last 2 weeks, we’ve gotten an astounding 120,463 signatures for our “Just ONE Question” campaign, demonstrating that well over our goal of 100,000 Americans believe global poverty is a critical issue Obama and McCain should address in a major media forum.

We hand-delivered about 103,000 of those signatures to debate moderator Jim Lehrer’s office in Arlington in advance of the debate. We’re disappointed Lehrer didn’t ask our question, but our momentum is still going strong and now we’re shifting focus to the next debate: October 7th in Nashville, moderated by Tom Brokaw.

If you haven’t signed on, please sign the petition by clicking the link below.

http://www.one.org/debates

And if you have signed on already, please tell a friend.

-Emily Stivers

ONE’s new TV ad – set to air on cable nationally surrounding the upcoming president debates.

Our petition, asking debate moderator Jim Lehrer to ask “Just ONE Question” about extreme poverty now has 107.905 signatures. We’ll keep delivering new signatures as they come in, so sign on if you haven’t already.

-Virginia Simmons

We just got back from delivering our “Just ONE Question” petitions to the NewsHour office in Shirlington, VA, where Jim Lehrer is currently selecting his questions for Friday’s presidential debate. Specifically, we handed all 103,000 signatures over for NewsHour’s Senior Producer of Research, who is accepting them on behalf debate moderator Jim Lehrer.

As you know, only two questions about global poverty have ever been asked in the history of modern presidential debates. Thanks to your efforts, we may get a third. Keep your fingers crossed!

(And don’t worry, we’ll continue to update their office with new signers as they roll in, and as debate particulars may change, so keep sending this online petition along to your friends.)

-Ranna Lanagan