“ONE Your Candidates” Challenge

October 21st, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Weekly Challenge #5: ONE Your Candidates!

Details: 10,000 points to the school that gets the most and/or highest-profile candidates to show their support for ONE.

Deadline: Sunday, October 26th, 2008

This week, we’re asking you to respectfully document elected officials and/or candidates supporting ONE. We’ll be judging based on how many candidates/officials you ONE, how high-profile they are, and also the quality of your contact with them. You’ll need to submit a picture using our report tool in order to get points for challenge participation and be considered for the win.

Here are some great tips for how to properly ONE your candidates, and some sample questions to ask at events.

5 Ways to Get a Candidate’s Attention:

1. Ask good questions. At a public appearance, ask candidates what kind of leadership they will provide on global poverty. You can ask questions directly or submit them through a media or organizational host, depending on the format of the forum or event.

2. Have a strong showing. Organize a group of ONE Members in ONE t-shirts for a big rally or local forum. Try to stand near the front and in the view of television cameras and/or reporters.

3. Use the handshake line. At candidate events, there is almost always a handshake line. It’s a great chance to get in a good question and to ask the candidate to put on a ONE wristband.

Check out the ONE Blog where volunteers documented getting Senator Biden, Senator McCain, Senator Obama and Governor Palin to put on ONE white bands, to mention just a few success stories.

4. Get a photo. Candidates like posed photographs and you need one to complete this challenge. Getting a photo of you or your group in ONE t-shirts with the candidates is a good way to ask a question and extend a discussion. Or you can use a photo of just the candidate wearing a ONE band. Just make sure ONE and the candidate are in the picture.

5. Have 1-2 talking points for reporters in case you’re asked questions. Let them know that a factor determining your vote is a candidate’s proposal to fight global poverty and preventable disease.

Sample Questions for Candidates

For candidates for federal office:

1. How will you work to fight diseases such as AIDS and malaria in the developing world, and how do such efforts fit into your approach to foreign policy?

2. The Millennium Development Goals range from providing universal primary education to halving the number of people suffering from hunger. What role should the United States play in the international effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015?

For candidates for state and local office:

3. How will you work locally to support the global effort to fight diseases such as HIV/AIDS and to support leaders at the national level in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals?

4. What role do local elected leaders play in the global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which range from providing universal primary education to halving the number of people suffering from hunger?

Remember: The voice of the ONE Campaign is always earnest, collaborative, positive, respectful and hopeful. It produces results and, most importantly, makes the hope contagious. The ONE Campaign is bipartisan and does not endorse any single candidate, so get both sides of the aisle if you can. And get those pictures!

Check out this challenge’s point system here.

If you need ONE gear for use in this challenge, student leaders can contact Community Outreach Ambassadors (COAs) through your campus webpage.

Game On!

-Emily Stivers