It’s hard for me to believe ONE Vote 2010 has come to an end. After four months of working with field organizers and ONE members like you in more than 12 Senate races, I’m proud to say that our efforts have paid off.
You took the time to educate candidates about ending extreme poverty and preventable disease. In the spirit of non-partisanship, you met with Democratic candidates 87 times, Republican candidates 88 times and Independent candidates 6 times.
You signed up more than 3,000 new ONE members and attended more than 200 events — I can’t thank you enough for getting out on the campaign trail and giving a voice to ONE’s issues. Take a look at this video and see the results of your hard work!
Earlier this year, ONE launched ONE Vote 2010, an effort to mobilize voters and engage U.S. Senate candidates in open seats to make the fight against global poverty and disease a key foreign policy and security issue at the 2010 ballot box.
Just like ONE Vote ’08, we asked the candidates to make time for the more than 7,000 Arkansas ONE members and the world’s poorest people and answer our 2010 ONE Vote question:
Q: ONE’s vision for Africa is rooted in a moral and humanitarian desire to help the most vulnerable people, a recognition that building economic opportunities abroad creates opportunities at home, and a strategic understanding that our national security is intertwined with the stability of poor countries across the globe. Through bipartisan cooperation in Washington, the US has been a leader in helping provide millions of Africans with life-saving medicine, children with the chance to go to school, and women with the tools to feed their families, while investing in sustainable economic growth and tackling corruption to ensure scarce resources are used as intended.
How best can the US continue to tackle global disease, poverty, and hunger?
ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like this one from our field team and organizers on the road.
ONE members hit the campaign trail hard these past three days, attending five events for Senate candidate Rob Portman all over Ohio to let him know once again that Ohioans care about global poverty and disease. We also thanked him for his work, ideas and efforts around trade, and for his leadership on PEPFAR as the former budget director in the Bush Administration. I urged him to continue that same leadership if he is elected to the US Senate. He told a ONE member he had seen us about a dozen times and that ONE is doing great work! Before I could even thank him, he said he’ll continue to support trade efforts in developing nations, and as he left, he turned around and said, “PEPFAR too!”
Our members also got the chance to meet and thank John and Karen Kasich, supporters of ONE who traveled to Rwanda with us in 2008. We also briefly met former US Senator Mike DeWine, who has traveled to Haiti twenty times and is very supportive of us.
Only 4 days until the election! Be sure to join us on Facebook and Twitter for frequent updates.
Come November 3rd, our elected California senator will represent the largest single-state constituency of ONE members around the world. And since we enjoy an international stage here in the Golden State, quite often our conversations don’t reflect on whether, but rather how we tackle extreme poverty and preventable disease around the world.
Whether you live in NorCal or SoCal, or identify yourself as a progressive or conservative, the facts remain the same. In less than a decade, support for the Global Fund has helped save 5.7 million lives, while 2.7 million lives have been spared from HIV/AIDS because of the U.S. initiative known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
Last night, more than 1,000 Hoosiers attended this year’s State Dinner in Indianapolis, Indiana. As people were checking in, I ran into U.S. Senate candidate Dan Coats and his campaign manager. Dan Coats and his staff are well aware of ONE and our efforts to continue our nation’s heroic efforts to save lives in the poorest parts of Africa, and he has seen ONE members all along the campaign trail. This time was no different — he even remembered me by name!
Gov. Mitch Daniels opened up the night with a speech. I must admit I had a good time, but was definitely there to catch up with him and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to let them know more about ONE. So, I tried my best to make my way to Gov. Christie and talk with him more about U.S. life-saving efforts, and how he recently saw ONE members in Iowa earlier this month, but he slipped out of the event before I could talk with him.
ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
Yesterday, former President Bill Clinton came to Chicago for an event with U.S. senatorial candidate, Alexi Giannoulias and other local candidates. I went out with some ONE members extra early, decked out in our ONE shirts to make sure that they saw ONE and were reminded of our efforts to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease in Africa.
During his speech, President Clinton touched on many subjects and fired up the crowd with stories from his years in office, but he took time during his speech to praise former President Bush’s efforts to save lives from HIV/AIDS in Africa by creating the PEPFAR program. President Clinton went on to remind the crowd that America must continue to lead in the fight against AIDS, poverty and malaria!
On Saturday, just 10 days before the midterm election, former vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin traveled to Orlando for a GOP rally with U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio. With many elected leaders, press and voters in attendance, we knew this would be a great opportunity for ONE to continue to get the word out about our efforts to rally Americans in the fight against extreme poverty and global disease in the developing world.
When the event kicked off around 3 P.M., our group of ONE members were right up front, waving ONE signs and proudly displaying our ONE shirts.
While we listened to speeches from Gov. Palin, Marco Rubio and many of the other top Republican leaders, I was thinking what the view must look like from stage — so many people were there showing support for ONE and our nonpartisan movement to help celebrate efforts to save lives and make sure that life-and-death issues like hunger, HIV/AIDS and malaria remain a key focus of U.S. foreign policy.
As the event came to a close, I was able to quickly introduce myself and ONE to Gov. Palin. With almost no time to chat, I did not get the chance to remind her of our recent engagement with her in Iowa, but I did thank her for always making time for ONE on the campaign trail in 2008 and beyond. Stay tuned to the ONE blog to see our photo with Sarah Palin, which will be posted later this week!
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