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!”

-Rebecca Hoffer

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.

-Matt Higginson

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.

Great night for Nevadans and ONE!

-Megan Jones

The final NV caucus push is on.

We are bird-dogging every candidate and campaign event as is humanly possible—this weekend it was Obama and Hillary in Las Vegas and Bill Clinton in Reno.

Congresswoman Shelley Berkley was caught with her ONE wristband on at the Hillary Clinton event in Vegas. Cong. Berkley serves as an honorary chair for ONE Nevada. Way to spread the word congresswoman!

-Megan Jones

Are you ready to make your voice heard in the Nevada caucus, the first presidential nominating contest in the West? We’ve created an easy way for you to write a letter to a likely Nevada caucus-goer. This is your chance to send the message that each vote can help end extreme poverty and global disease.

The decisions that caucus-goers make in Nevada will have a major impact on the race for the presidency. When you ask a Nevadan to visit our On The Record website and learn more about where the candidates stand, you’ll be putting global poverty front and center in the 2008 presidential campaign.

http://www.onevote08.org/onetoone

We had a couple of great opportunities to meet with the Obama campaign last week.

On Monday, Senator Obama was in Las Vegas to rally students and young voters. During the event he spoke about the need to help the world’s poor by fighting HIV AIDS and educating children who don’t have access to free education.

After Obama spoke I was able to shake his hand and thank him for going “on the record” for ONE. He said, “Absolutely, I was happy to do it. It’s important.”

On Saturday the Obama campaign and the ONE UNLV Club held a foreign policy forum with Samantha Power. Samantha is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a senior advisor for Senator Obama.

She spoke extensively about US foreign policy, Darfur, and about the ONE Campaign’s goals to eradicate extreme poverty and disease. Many of our volunteers were able attend and engage in a great discussion about why the issues of global disease, hunger, child & maternal health, and education should be a priority for the next president.

Samantha had just returned from speaking to our fellow ONE members in South Carolina and we were happy that she took some time to visit us in Nevada as well!

-Matt Higginson

Nevada ONE member Robin Mercer delivered 50,000+ petitions asking Governor Mitt Romney to go on the record and tell us exactly where he stands on fighting extreme poverty and global disease. Will he – and the other presidential candidates – take up the challenge?
Stay tuned.

Update: UNR ONE Club President Tracey Gaffney and club member Adam Allen just presented John Edwards with “On the Record” petitions, too.

-Aaron Banks

Monday, November 5th, marked a great historical moment for the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). At a press conference held by the ONE Club at UNLV, Provost Neil Smatresk represented our University President David Ashley, and read a proclamation declaring UNLV a “ONE Campus!” This proclamation comes at a very unique time as UNLV gets ready to host the CNN Democratic Presidential Candidate debate on November 15th.

Chancellor Jim Rogers was also in attendance as a ONE Vote ‘08 Ambassador to announce a very unique scholarship opportunity for ONE UNLV Club members. UNLV students gathered together and in full force have jumped on the ONE Campus Challenge this week. The press conference was covered by 3 local TV stations and our student paper, The Rebel Yell.

We are excited by all the ways we can earn points for our university. As our basketball team gets ready to begin the new season Rebel fans are anxious to get them in ONE gear at a game. Other future events will include hosting a ONE ROCKS! Concert November 14th to raise awareness of the ONE Campaign and recruit new members.

UNLV is off to a great start and excited about the ONE Campus Challenge. Keep watch while these Rebels with a Cause work their way up in the standings to raise awareness about ONE.

-Rebecca Hoffer, President of ONE UNLV

We were thrilled to have SONICFLOOd in Las Vegas last week to play a show and rally ONE members of faith at The Crossing Church. Over 800 people turned out to hear Sonicflood’s inspirational music and message.

Throughout the evening over 150 people signed the declaration, including some of our newest and youngest members. Although some of the youngsters didn’t have email address, they were very pleased to know that their name would be added to the list because they wanted “to help the children live.”

We are lucky to have Pastors Shane Philip, Chris Cooley, and Ben Parker as ONE ambassadors. They held a service on the ONE Campaign in April after which they signed up many members of their congregation and they are also excited about the ONE Sabbath program this month.

Below is some video from the event:

-Matt Higginson

ONE Vote 08’s core mission is to make global poverty and diseases priorities in the 2008 election, and yet global poverty wasn’t even mentioned once in the last two presidential debates. It’s time that we step up our game.

Right now, ONE members are urging every man and woman running for president to tell us, in writing, where they stand and what plans they have for:

• Eradicating malaria;
• Improving child and maternal health;
• Reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis;
• Achieving universal primary education; and
• Providing access to food and clean water for all.

At the same time, we’re asking all the candidates to speak on camera to ONE members about these commitments.

Please sign the petition and ask your friends and family to sign as well.

To increase the impact of this campaign, we’ll be placing newspaper ads in the four critical early primary states asking the candidates to tell us where they stand – and in those ads we’ll let the candidates know just how many ONE Campaign members have already signed the petition.

We are only a few weeks away from the start of the primary elections and the actions we take now could matter even more than they do on Election Day 2008.

Please sign ONE’s “On The Record” petition today.

-Virginia Simmons