Making POVERTY a 2008 presidential campaign issue | ONE Vote '08

[Sapphire Blue]

(Cross-posted in GD)

Big Spending for, Well, Poverty
By Silla Brush
Tue Jul 17, 3:51 PM ET

One Vote '08, the national campaign to make poverty a campaign issue in the 2008 presidential election, will spend $30 million in the four earliest primary and caucus states: Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given the effort, begun with the help of U2's Bono, a $22 million grant. Campaign organizers say that amount is the "minimum" for the campaign, making it surely one of the biggest issue campaigns thus far announced for the 2008 election cycle.

Kimberly Cadena, a campaign spokeswoman, says the issues of global health and poverty resonate with voters, in part because many people now consider them issues of national security. Faith-based communities also respond to these issues.

The antipoverty campaign has met with all of the presidential candidates, she said, and has met with some of them several times. The campaign isn't planning to endorse a candidate.

The focus is on the early primary states at the moment, but "our efforts will expand after January," Cadena says. The initiative coincides with the week-long effort by candidate John Edwards to highlight the problems of America's poor.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20070717/ts_usnews/bigspendingforwellpoverty

ONE Vote '08

Mobilizing Voters to Save Lives and Secure our Future

ONE Vote '08 is an unprecedented, bi-partisan campaign to make global health and extreme poverty foreign policy priorities in the 2008 presidential election.

The next president will take office in a time of great hope: there are effective and affordable solutions that save lives. AIDS drugs can now cost as little as $1 a day. A $5 bed net can keep a child from dying from a mosquito bite. With the force of more than millions of members from all 50 states and a coalition of more than 100 non-profit, religious and charitable groups, ONE Vote '08 will educate and mobilize voters to ensure that the next American president is committed to using "strategic" power to end global poverty and keep America strong.

ONE Vote '08 is part of ONE, a broad and growing movement of Americans from every state and walk of life. More than millions of people have added their voices to ONE by visiting ONE.org

Learn more about the solutions

Why it's important

Democratic and Republican strategists agree

Religious voices agree


SIGN UP FOR ONE: http://www.onevote08.org/aboutone.php

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VIDEO: http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=979158880

[brentspeak]

1. k and r

:kick:

[whistle]

2. Bush's trickle down economics has eroded the purchasing power

...of 97% of Americans by 40% in the last two years as the U.S. dollar trades for less and less against most of the world's currencies. High paying production jobs have been outsourced overseas and the service jobs which have been created do not pay enough to offset this decline in purchasing power. The former U.S. middle class is now heading straight toward poverty.

[lepus]

3. not to mention shrubs policy of

importing poverty from mexico to compete against the most vulnerable economic class in the U.S.