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!

-Michele Meyer

Earlier today Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain made a campaign stop at the Convention Center in Tampa, Florida, addressing more than 1,500 community members that came out to hear him speak.

I met ONE Field organizer Jedidiah Hall and some volunteers at the event where we spoke to several people in the crowd about ONE and our efforts to raise awareness about AIDS and extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.

A number of Florida state and local politicians spoke about the McCain/Palin ticket, but it was Cindy McCain and Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) who introduced John McCain to the crowd.

ONE volunteers are creating a real presence on the campaign trail in Florida as we continue to show the candidates that no matter what party you belong to, fighting global disease and extreme poverty is a priority.

-Sara J. Paterni, ONE Field Organizer

Pennsylvania ONE members’ ONE shirts were clearly visible throughout CNN and MSNBC’s live coverage of the McCain-Palin Lancaster rally yesterday afternoon. See this screenshot from MSNBC below.

Go ONE!

Having just returned from 2 weeks at the DNC and RNC conventions, I was browsing through ONE’s “On The Record” microsite, where anyone can learn the (current and former) 2008 presidential candidates’ plans for fighting extreme poverty.

Below see short video clips from Senator Obama, Senator McCain and Senator Biden. (Gov. Palin was not a presidential candidate in 2008 so we don’t have her on the record on global poverty on the site.)

Senator Obama on doubling foreign assistance:

Senator McCain on the global AIDS crisis and PEPFAR

Senator Biden on global poverty and U.S. security:

You can read more about all their plans on each of their individual pages on the site. (Obama’s page here, McCain’s page here, and Biden’s page here.)

-Virginia Simmons

Senator John McCain announced his running mate for this election- Governor Sarah Palin. When Obama announced his vp-pick last week, ONE members wrote to him immediately calling on him to be a leader on global poverty, now we need to make sure we contact Governor Sarah Palin right away too.

Soon Palin will be engulfed in campaigning and national media, so now is our moment to break through the clutter. Send the below digital postcard to McCain vp-pick now and then forward the news to your friends. We want her to hear from ONE members first.

-Virginia Simmons

Yesterday, John McCain was campaigning in Sparks Nevada and as always ONE was there to great him.

On the rope line as Senator McCain entered the town hall he spotted my ONE shirt and pointed it out to his wife. Having just returned from Rwanda with ONE it was a familiar sight. I was able to thank Cindy for traveling with ONE and asked her how the trip went. “Amazing,” she said, “it was fantastic.”

Well it must have stayed on her mind. Prior to introducing her husband, Cindy spoke to the packed high school auditorium about the ONE Campaign and her “incredible journey through Rwanda.” She went on to offer her support for the efforts by ONE to make fighting extreme poverty and disease a foreign policy priority during this election season, and for the many organizations on the ground in Africa “offering hope to mothers and children through selfless aid work and service.”

Mrs. McCain went on to comment about the strength of African families and noted that the key to fighting these dreaded diseases will be to empower African women and mothers.

-Matt Higginson

Listen to this NRP piece from Thursday about McCain and Obama’s interest in boosting foreign aid. The beginning of the piece is transcribed below, but the full clip is just over 4 minutes and worth the listen.

The economy may be in trouble and the budget deficit growing, but supporters of U.S. foreign aid see some promising times ahead. That’s because both leading candidates for president have talked about the need to continue to help poor nations develop.

Every so often at town hall meetings on the campaign trail, Republican John McCain calls on people from a grassroots organization known as the ONE campaign. They ask him what he’ll do to help poor nations fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and illiteracy. McCain has said he sees foreign assistance as a key factor in securing America.

“It really needs to eliminate many of the breeding grounds for extremism, which is poverty, which is HIV/AIDS, which is all of these terrible conditions that make people totally dissatisfied and then look to extremism, particularly Islamic extremism,” he told a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last month.

At a speech in Washington this summer, Democrat Barack Obama also spoke about development aid as a strategic imperative for the U.S. in today’s world.

“I know development assistance is not the most popular of programs, but as president, I will make the case to the American people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world and increasing our own security,” he said. “That’s why I will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012 and use it to support a stable future in failing states and sustainable growth in Africa, to halve global poverty and to roll back disease.”

McCain has not been that specific about how much money he would spend, but he has set a goal of trying to eradicate malaria in Africa and fight corruption.

Steve Radelet of the Center for Global Development sees a total change in Washington’s attitude about development aid, and he’s hoping this will translate into some real reform….

Sen. McCain held a town hall meeting in Rochester, NH, yesterday to campaign for President. And just like we did for all the candidates from both parties during the NH Primary, and just we did in Unity, NH, last month – ONE was there to help advocate for the world’s poorest people.

As you can see from earlier posts, Sen. McCain recognized ONE at the start of the town hall and even briefly mentioned how Cindy McCain was joining ONE on a bi-partisan trip to Rwanda.

Later during the town hall meeting, ONE’s Marine, Michael Castaldo raised his hand and spoke with Sen. McCain about US efforts to fight AIDS and poverty in Africa and how it relates to Def. Sec. Gates’ recent call for more funding for humanitarian aid to help win hearts and minds around the world.

Programs like PEPFAR and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, are helping to save millions of lives around the world and lift millions more out of extreme poverty. But it also helps to create a safer and more secure future for those in need, and for us at home.

-Matthew Bartlett

Just a couple hours ago on MSNBC:

A quick transcription:

“And could I also recognize another organization that is very, very popular and a very important one, not only here in New Hampshire but across the country, and that’s an organization called ONE.

This is an organization inspired by a lot of people including Bono and they have over 2 million volunteers in this nation, and they go all over the world, especially Africa, to help cure malaria, AIDS, cholera, and help people. This is one the great examples of what America is all about.

I’m proud that Cindy, and a group, a number of other people, are in Africa as we speak, with the organization called ONE trying to do what we can to help those people and that organization and publicize their great work.

Thank you to the group from ONE, will you guys stand? Thank you very much. Thank you.”

-Virginia Simmons

Last Thursday ONE Members in Portsmouth Ohio attended a Town Hall Meeting for John McCain. The Senator reiterated his commitment to the ONE Campaign and its issues – and our volunteers were all anxious to have an opportunity to show the Senator their support for fighting extreme poverty around the world.

ONE’s presence at presidential campaign events is nothing new to the campaign trail and we work to have our members and volunteers attend events for both Senator’s Obama and McCain. It wasn’t long after we arrived that we were given an incredibly warm welcome by the McCain staff, thanking us for our continued presence at events.

Shortly after McCain delivered his remarks, he singled out the ONE Vote ‘08 members, asking them to stand and briefly discuss the ONE Campaign and our mission. Before calling on ONE members, McCain stated that we were some of the best citizens of our generation, in that we are working for a cause bigger than ourselves. When asked what his administration would do to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, McCain responded by stating that he would increase funding for vaccines and to the World Health Organization.

After McCain’s remarks, ONE members greeted McCain and wife, Cindy, handing them both ONE wristbands. Cindy quickly put her wristband on, telling the ONE members how excited she was to travel to Rwanda with the bi-partisan ONE delegation later this week.

As we were leaving one of the town hall attendees shouted through the crowd, “thanks, and you guys are doing incredible, incredible work.”

-Blake Waggoner- ONE Ohio Field Staff