This past weekend Nevada held its first ever early caucus. Like any political event, ONE was there. When I turned on CNN on Saturday I couldn’t miss seeing ONE shirts. But that was just one caucus, and with tens of thousands of members around Nevada and hundreds of caucus sites there are many more stories to be told than what was on the news.
A couple of volunteers have already sent in their stories of both easy successes and some frustrations:
It was a very successful day. In a 90-minute period I was given two separate opportunities to talk voters in my precinct about ONE and why it should be included in our party’s platform. It was well accepted both times and I had several people express their support for ONE after the meeting.
- Jack Winslow, Las Vegas Republican
Our Caucus went great–great experience! I had no problem submitting the plank. I was the only one to submit something that I wanted to include to the parties plank. Nobody objected and they all (32 people ) thought that it was a great idea. There was a great turn out at Bonanza High School. Several Thousand people.
- Rory K. Riley, Las Vegas Democrat
I talked up ONE to all my neighbors, explained the campaign, wrote down the internet source for members who seemed genuinely interested, distributed info and bracelets, delivered the resolution, and got myself elected to the county convention.
- Judy Michaels, Las Vegas Democrat
The caucus was a frustrating experience…but my frustrations were over issues other than my submission of the ONE platform. In fact, that was about the only thing that went much as I expected.
- David Entler
If you are a Nevadan ONE member, please take a moment to share your reflections from last weekend’s caucus by posting a comment below. It is important that we all have a chance to learn and find inspiration from your efforts.
The caucus just ended. 166 delegates showed up, many of them sporting ONE bands. There was a lot of excitement in the air. The final count was close with 17 delegates going to Obama and 16 to Clinton.
Jessica Vandenberg ran the Caesar’s Palace caucus and wore a ONE t-shirt. Since CNN was covering this particular caucus it was all over television (according to reports from my friends).
With a little national media for ONE, I am going to call this caucus location a success for ONE.
I am in Las Vegas, Nevada at Caesar’s palace, the site of one of the (recently contested) Democratic Party Caucus locations. The caucus is being setup as I type.
I stopped by Cashman Convention Center in Las Vegas yesterday afternoon which is the Results Reporting Headquarters. You can see table after empty table waiting for the day to begin. ONE Vote ’08 had a strong presence with banners and T-shirt clad volunteers all over the place. ONE Vote ’08 is also providing water for all the political reporters. The media should certainly know we’re here.
Now I am waiting for the first caucus-goers to arrive at Caesar’s Palace. The setup is a lot more modest, just a couple hundred people are expected (though I am not sure anyone really knows). We hope to see a few ONE members representing the fight against extreme poverty.
Nevada will be holding its first ever early caucus tomorrow morning. This is a chance for all Nevadans to play a crucial role in selecting the next president of the United States.
It is also a great time for everyone in the Silver State (and the rest of us for that matter) to look over what each candidate’s plan is for fighting extreme poverty and global disease. You can find what they have to say on the ONE Vote ’08 On the Record site.
Also, if you are going to be caucusing tomorrow but don’t know where to go, you can find your caucus location on:
A few of us were able to attend a rally with Bill Clinton on Monday. Angela Tomasello and Matt Higginson joined me for the event with our ONE signs and T-shirts.
During his stump speech President Clinton looked over to us and addressed ONE’s issues directly – citing the need to fight extreme global poverty and the fact that 1 billion people live on less than $1/day and over half the world’s population lives on less than $2/day.
President Clinton also talked about how his Clinton Global Initiative has teamed up with other NGOs such as ONE to supply inexpensive HIV/AIDS vaccines to Africa and the developing world.
We were able to snap a photo with him after the event to which he proclaimed, “I love the ONE Campaign!”
Barack Obama came to Las Vegas on Friday and held a rally at Del Sol High School. The line to get in was so long that it wrapped around the high school parking lot, but we were fortunate enough to get in. Apparently about 2000 people were not so lucky, including a few of our ONE volunteers. Before Senator Obama came inside to the rally he held an impromptu rally in the parking lot with those who didn’t make it in.
When we got inside, my wife and I were asked by an Obama staffer to sit on the stage behind the Senator in our ONE T-shirts. It was a unique perspective for the rally but we weren’t able to ask a question during the Q & A. We were, however, able to get those ONE T-shirts on all the local news stations coverage of the rally.
During his speech, Obama spoke about the need to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the importance of providing proper education to children in parts of the world where they are taught hatred of America rather than reading, writing and arithmetic.
Ambassadors Jenna Morton and Cisco Aguilar were on hand Tuesday night to spin their way through the post-debate analysis. ONE Vote ’08 was an official co-sponsor of the debate and the logo could be seen every time Chris Mathews did a live shot of spin alley.
ONE Vote ’08 volunteers fired up the crowd outside and passed out wristbands to debate watchers. Check out the awesome video ONE’s Matt Higginson put together from footage outside the debate.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
