Move over Washington University! You may have had vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in St. Louis for the debate, but ONE Webster had the ONE Campaign Tour Bus! Sporting a giant ONE logo and blasting great music, the ONE Campaign tour bus attracted students as we tabled throughout the day to promote our vice presidential debate watch party that evening.
Not only did we have the bus, but former Missouri Governor Bob Holden put on a pre-debate analysis with a panel of experts from universities across St. Louis. We packed Webster’s Sunnen Lounge with 170 people. After the chairs ran out, people piled in around the sides and back.
I figured the current economic crisis would dominate the debate, but I wanted [ONE to be there to] make sure everyone remembered those who have been living in an economic crisis their entire lives.
Thank you to all of the ONE Webster volunteers and our co-sponsors: Holden Public Policy Forum, Webster Rock the Vote, College Republicans and College Democrats.
It felt like the first day of fall in Media, PA on Tuesday when Senator Joe Biden addressed a crowd of thousands of supporters at the Linvilla Orchards. The outdoor venue was covered with fallen leaves and the stage sat in front of a trailer full of pumpkins. Senator Biden and Dr. Jill Biden stayed to greet the attendees who sat on hay and picnic tables during the speech.
I handed Dr. Biden a ONE band; she thanked me enthusiastically and immediately put it on! When Senator Biden approached and I held out the white band he laughed, “I already have so many ONE bands. I need to start wearing one regularly!” Sounds like a good idea to me!
Tyler Sangermano from the University of Missouri attended a rally with Senator Joe Biden in Columbia, MO last week and managed to not only ask the senator about his plans to combat extreme poverty, but also hand deliver a ONE shirt and capture on video the senator telling a great story about his wife and he thinking about ONE the night before he was selected to be Senator Obama’s running mate.
The audio is a little rough in this video clip, so I transcribed a few key bits of what Senator Biden says below.
First he talked proudly about how he
“shepherded through the new AIDS, malaria, and Tuberculosis proposal [PEPFAR] that went from 30 billion to 50 billion and by the way, George W. Bush deserves great credit.”
And then after Tyler handed Biden a ONE shirt, which he held up for the crowd, Senator Biden told this great story:
“When Barack Obama picked me and asked me to be his vice president, I talked [...to my wife]. And my wife told me the night before… I don’t know about you guys, but my wife is such a busy mother and grandmother and teacher…and all of the notes at our house are literally taped to the bathroom mirrors…so literally notes are on the mirror any where I shave.
And she had a ONE decal, you know the big decals you have like this? Only it was white with blue on it. And she had [written] underneath ONE, she had ‘squared’. That’s me. ONE Squared. Between Barack Obama and me we are going to ONE Square it.”
Last Wednesday, Vice Presidential Candidate Sen. Joe Biden came to Nashua, NH to hold a town hall meeting. Just like we did during the NH Primary, I made it out to the event with some ONE members to make sure that the world’s poorest people were not forgotten in the battle-ground state of New Hampshire.
ONE’s Marine, Michael Castaldo was there, as was NH blogger Chaz Proulx who has blogged about ONE in the past. During the town hall Sen. Biden spoke about the global challenges that face the world today and right behind him was ONE member Penny Warren in her EDUN shirt and ONE band. You could see her and her shirt clearly on the NH newscast that night!
After the town hall ended, I had a chance to speak with Sen. Biden and thanked him for his leadership in passing the new global AIDS bill, called PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which has helped save over 2 million lives around the world. He told me that he worked hard to pass PEPFAR in the US Senate, but that President Bush deserves a lot of credit for it as well. I agreed with his bi-partisan comment and asked him to make sure that the Millennium Challenge Corporation – a new program that pairs responsible, yet highly impoverished countries with new and better aid – gets full funding during appropriations as it only has about a quarter of its proposed funds this year.
As election season heats up, you can bet that ONE members will be hitting the campaign trail to make sure that both of them know that fighting global disease and extreme poverty is not only possible, but it is a priority. Stay tuned to the blog for future ONE Vote ’08 updates!
Last week, Pennsylvania marked the official launch of ONE Vote ‘08 in the state with a kick-off event at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. The event brought together ONE members from around the state and PA’s ONE Vote ‘08 bipartisan co-chairs, former U.S. Senators Rick Santorum (R) and Harris Wofford (D).
The event offered an excellent backdrop for ONE Vote ’08 in Pennsylvania and it was great to see Mr. Santorum and Mr. Wofford, two former political rivals who once competed for the same Senate seat, put aside their political differences to speak of their own commitment to the issues of global health and poverty and encourage all Pennsylvanians to join the fight!
On Tuesday Senator Joe Biden returned to Des Moines – now as a vice presidential candidate for the Democratic Party – and ONE was there!
After the event Senator Biden walked the rope line and shook hands with attendees. While he was talking to someone, he saw my ONE shirt reached out, grabbed my hand, and pulled me in for a big hug exclaiming his happiness to see ONE at the event.
I told the senator about the events ONE did at both parties’ national conventions. He said he saw many ONE supporters in Denver and that his wife wore a ONE sticker. I also thanked the senator for his ongoing support of ONE and gave him a ONE hat, which he was very excited about and carried it through the rest of the line.
Many familiar Pennsylvanians and ONE members came out to Bucks County to see the Bidens at an Obama Campaign rally at Maple Point Middle School. ONE volunteer Ashley Miller was seated on the stage behind the podium and her brother texted her during the forum saying he had seen her on CNN wearing her ONE t-shirt!
After hearing from PA Congressman Patrick Murphy, PA Governor Ed Rendell, PA native Jill Biden, and Senator Biden himself, the crowd was able to ask questions – and the first was asked by ONE member Mary Day Kent! She asked how an Obama-Biden administration would regain America’s standing in a world with one billion people living on less than $1 a day.
When answering, Senator Biden emphasized that humanitarian aid is in the United States’ national security interest and said the passage of bills like PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) have saved millions of lives and improved America’s relationship with developing countries.
At the end of the event, PA Governor Rendell and Senator Biden stayed to take pictures and talk about ONE with volunteers after the forum. Check some of them out below.
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.
