Gates Foundation To Fund "One" '08 Campaign

Bill Gates's multi-million dollar effort to influence the course of the presidential election is about to grow: next Monday, the "One" Foundation, a global anti-AIDS and anti-poverty coalition fronted by Bono, will launch ONE Vote '08.

Ex-Majority Leaders Tom Daschle and Bill Frist will launch the project on Capitol Hill.

Gates's foundation will contribute an unspecified amount to the project, according to a ONE official.

ONE calls itself "the campaign to make poverty history," and has lobbied Congress to increase the amount of global anti-poverty spending by an additional one percent of its budget.

ONE's president, Susan McCue, was formerly the chief of staff to majority leader Harry Ried and has retained her influence as a prime mover in Democratic worlds. Campaign managers return her phone calls immediately. Which means that ONE, along with Gates's other cause, Edin08.com, will not be ignored. ED wants candidates to submit detailed plans to reform education; ONE wants them to submit detailed anti-AIDS and anti-poverty plans. We assume that the Dem and GOP frontrunners will have no trouble meeting these challenges.


ONE has hired campaign managers in four early primary states, and they hope to mobilize one million activists to pressure the Democratic candidates.

And Bono will be on Oprah today to talk about his stint as the first ever guest editor of Vanity Fair.

And then what? ONE's biggest hope of influencing the campaign will be to influence the media who cover the campaign.