January 24th, 2008 at 12:47 pm | posted by Weldon Kennedy
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.
January 19th, 2008 at 6:46 pm | posted by Josh Peck, ONE.org
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.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm | posted by Josh Peck, ONE.org
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.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:04 pm | posted by Weldon Kennedy
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!”
January 17th, 2008 at 10:51 am | posted by Virginia Simmons
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.
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!
January 9th, 2008 at 5:05 pm | posted by Aaron.Banks
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.
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!
The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, volunteers, members and coalition partners.
The content of each post and each comment represent the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the ONE Campaign or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any posts expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
