Dierks Bentley Rocks Iowa for ONE

DES MOINES, IA — Country music star Dierks Bentley performed at the Iowa State Fair on behalf of Iowa’s ONE Vote ’08, a non-partisan movement launched by the ONE Campaign to make the fight against global disease and extreme poverty a key foreign policy issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Playing at the fair, Bentley brought his high-energy show to the heart of Iowa’s political playing field. Candidates vying for the 2008 presidential nomination from both political parties have been crisscrossing the fairgrounds to meet and earn the support of Iowa fairgoers. Bentley joined thousands of Iowa ONE Vote ’08 members from across the state in urging the candidates to make historical commitments to fight global disease and extreme poverty.

“The ONE Campaign is about kids,” Dierks Bentley said backstage before he performed. “There are so many kids that die daily from preventable diseases and stupid poverty. Things that can be fixed by people coming together and thinking and talking about it. Here in Iowa, I see a lot of young people who want to serve on any level, and they’re working to do stuff locally and globally.” Dierks performed wearing the white ONE band and a ONE Vote ’08 t-shirt.

ONE Vote ’08 is aggressively working in Iowa and the other early primary states — New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — to engage and energize both the candidates and the voters on issues of AIDS, hunger and preventable disease in the developing world. In Iowa alone, 20,000 ONE members are mobilizing at events such as the Iowa State Fair, asking questions at debates, and talking face-to-face with candidates in coffeehouses and restaurants about the need for America to take the lead in combating global disease.

ONE Vote ’08 combines the grassroots-energy of 2.4 million ONE members across America with the star power of performers such as Bentley, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and the political expertise of figures such as ONE Vote ’08 co-chairs, former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle.