They should have spent a little time debating hunger, poverty

An editorial  —  10/16/2008 5:29 am

Last night's final presidential debate was a missed opportunity.

Barack Obama and John McCain could have, should have, talked about hunger.

They had a perfect opening, as they debated on the eve of World Food Day.

This is the day when advocates seek to get Americans -- especially those Americans who happen to be in definitional policy-making positions -- to consider how easy it would be to alleviate hunger on a planet where close to 1 billion people go hungry each day and where a child dies from starvation every five seconds.

As the prices of staple foods such as wheat, corn and rice rise at explosive rates, World Bank President Robert Zoellick says that if unaddressed, global food shortages have the potential to set the world back seven years in the fight against extreme poverty and global disease.

In a time of financial meltdown, the conditions of the poorest of the poor are easy to forget -- especially when there are so many domestic issues to talk about. But Barack Obama and John McCain should be talking more about the hunger and poverty issues that transcend borders.

As former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in the last year of her life: "Somehow we in this country who have so little experience of what it is like when there is no food available have got to try to understand this situation. For us, hunger comes to people who cannot afford to buy, but there is always the chance that some kind person will buy for one or that the government will look after one's needs. But when there just is no food, neither kindness nor the government can provide it. This is the kind of situation that calls for much imagination on our part in order to understand."

McCain and Obama have talked about these issues before. They are not unfamiliar with them. But, at this most critical stage in the campaign, they must be pressed to speak specifically about hunger and food shortages, and to offer specific proposals for how to address them.

Politicians never govern better than they campaign. If they are not genuinely conversant with issues of hunger and poverty, and genuinely engaged with the forging of bold new responses to them now, don't expect either of these candidates to do what is necessary when one of them becomes president on Jan. 20, 2009.

For more on the campaign to get the candidates to focus on hunger and poverty, check out www.one.org/keepourcommitments/, which describes the ONE campaign's push to hold the candidates to their commitments on these life-and-death issues.

An editorial  —  10/16/2008 5:29 am