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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
