I think after the first few debates, which would have been total snoozefests were it not for Gravel and Kucinich, Gravel got even less coverage from the media than Kucinich did in his run for the Dem. nomination. In some ways I find him more interesting. You see here he ended up trying for the Libertarian Party nomination, but ultimately, his mature views, which he has propounded since the 1970s, were too left-wing for them. Kucinich they neutralized with the 'UFO story' and putting the camera on Joe Biden the dirty old man from Delaware leched on Kucinich's wife (before he got married, the previous time he ran for president, they had put out the story he was gay). Gravel was identified as something like a 'left-wing libertarian' or 'left-wing populist'. It does tell you that the Republican Party is a slightly more friendly place for the supposedly anti-war kookster from Texas, Ron Paul, than the Democratic Party is for Gravel or Kucinich. I don't think the Republicans ever financed opponents to try and keep Paul out of office. The Republicans can even become anti-war libertarians if it's a Democrat prosecuting the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel Political positions Mike Gravel with campaign finance reform activist and friend Ethel Granny D Haddock Main article: Political positions of Mike Gravel Gravel has stated that he is an advocate for "a national, universal single-payer not-for-profit health care system" in the United States which would utilize vouchers and enable citizens to choose their own doctor.[124] He has proposed to index veteran health care entitlements to take full account of increases in the costs of care and medicine.[124] He supports a drug policy that legalizes and regulates all drugs, treating drug abuse as a medical issue, rather than a criminal matter.[125] Gravel favors a guest worker program,[124] supports the FairTax proposal that calls for eliminating the IRS and the income tax and replacing it with a progressive national sales tax of 23 percent on newly manufactured items and services, retaining progressivity via all taxes on spending up to the poverty level being refunded to every household.[124] Gravel has advocated that carbon energy should be taxed to provide the funding for a global effort to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to significantly reduce the world’s energy dependence on carbon.[124] Gravel in principle does not object to the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research purposes. He is avowedly pro-choice on the issue of abortion and women's reproductive rights. He supports constitutional amendments towards direct democracy. Gravel's political leanings and convictions are also in his 1972 manifesto, Citizen Power: A People's Platform. [edit] 2008 presidential campaign Main article: Mike Gravel presidential campaign, 2008 Mike Gravel at the launch of his Presidential campaign in April 2006 At the start of 2006, Gravel decided the best way he could promote direct democracy and the National Initiative was to run for president.[17] On April 17, 2006,[126] Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement.[127] Other principal Gravel positions were the FairTax, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days, a single payer national health care system, and term limits. Gravel campaigned almost full time in New Hampshire, the first primary state, following his announcement. Opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination showed Gravel with 1 percent or less support. By the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than $500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly $90,000.[128] Because of his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the early Democratic presidential debates. During the initial one at South Carolina State University on April 26, 2007, he suggested a bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties. He also advocated positions such as opposing preemptive nuclear war. He stated that the Iraq War had the effect of creating more terrorists and that the "war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis." Regarding his fellow candidates, he said, "I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me — they frighten me."[129] Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place.[129][130][131] Gravel gained considerable publicity by shaking up the normally staid multiple-candidate format; The New York Times' media critic said that what Gravel had done was "steal a debate with outrageous, curmudgeonly statements."[132] The Internet was a benefit: a YouTube video of his responses in the debate was viewed more than 225,892 times, ranking seventeenth in most views for week and first among news and politics clips;[133] his name became the fifteenth most searched-for in the blogosphere;[134] and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards.[17] Gravel appeared on the popular Colbert Report on television on May 2,[17] and his campaign and career were profiled in national publications such as Salon.[17] Two wordless, Warholesque campaign videos, "Rock" and "Fire", were released on YouTube in late May and became hits,[135] and eventually gained over 760,000 and 185,000 views respectively.[136][137] "Rock," in turn, was given airtime during an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again. Gravel's fundraising efforts for the first three quarters of 2007. All this did not improve his performance in the polls; a May 2007 CNN poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats.[138] Gravel was in the next several debates, in one case after CNN reversed a decision to exclude him.[139] Gravel, as with some of the other second-tier candidates, did not get as much time as the leaders; during the June 2, 2007, New Hampshire debate, which lasted two hours, he was asked 10 questions and allowed to speak for five minutes and 37 seconds.[140] During the July 23, 2007, CNN-YouTube presidential debate, Gravel responded to audience applause when he had complained of a lack of airtime and said: "Thank you. Has it been fair thus far?"[141] Detractors began to liken him to "the cranky uncle who lives in the attic,"[142] or "the angry old guy that just seemed to want to become angrier."[143] In the ABC News Des Moines, Iowa, debate of August 19, 2007, moderator George Stephanopoulos noted that Gravel polled a statistical zero percent support in the state, meaning less than 0.5% support, and then directed roughly five percent of his questions to Gravel;[144] in a poll asking who did the best in the debate, Gravel placed seventh among the eight candidates.[145] National opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination continued to show Gravel with one percent or zero percent numbers. By the end of the third-quarter 2007, Gravel had about $17,500 in cash on hand, had collected a total of about $380,000 so far during the 2008 election cycle,[146] and was continuing to run a threadbare campaign with minimal staff.[6] Gravel in Manchester, New Hampshire, two days before the January 8, 2008 Democratic primary there. Beginning with the October 30, 2007, Philadelphia event, Gravel was excluded from most of the debates, with the debate sponsors or the Democratic National Committee saying Gravel's campaign had not met fund-raising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds.[147][148][149] For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamed corporate censorship on the part of sponsor owner and alleged military-industrial complex member General Electric for his exclusion[150][151] and mounted a counter-gathering and debate against a video screen a short distance away,[152] but he had lost his easiest publicity. In reaction, supporters organized "mass donation days" to try to help the campaign gain momentum and funds, such as on December 5, 2007, the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition.[153] Gravel did not compete in the initial 2008 vote, the Iowa caucuses,[154] but was still subjected to a false report from MSNBC that he had pulled out of the race afterward.[155] Gravel did focus his attention on the second 2008 vote, the New Hampshire primary. There he received about 400 votes out of some 280,000 cast, or 0.14 percent,[156] before taking time off to improve his health.[157] He resumed campaigning, but fared no better in subsequent states. By the end of January 2008, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Gravel were the only remaining Democrats from the initial debates still running;[158] Gravel vowed to stay in the presidential campaign until November.[159][160] On March 11, 2008, Gravel continued to remain in the Democratic race but additionally endorsed a Green Party candidate for president, Jesse Johnson,[161] saying he wanted to help Johnson prevail against Green Party rivals Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader.[162] By late March, Gravel had almost no fundraising and was only on the ballot in one of the next ten Democratic primaries.[163] [edit] Switch to Libertarian Party On March 25, 2008, Gravel announced that he would leave the Democrats and join the Libertarian Party,[164][165] saying: "My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy."[164] The following day Gravel entered the race for the 2008 Libertarian presidential nomination,[166] saying that he would have run as a third-party candidate all along except that he needed the public exposure that came from being in the earlier Democratic debates.[166] Gravel's initial notion of running as a fusion candidate with other parties was met with skepticism[167] and not pursued. As a Libertarian candidate, Gravel faced resistance to his liberal past and unorthodox positions;[168] nevertheless, he garnered more support than he had as a Democrat, placing second and third in two April 2008 straw polls.[169] In the May 25 balloting at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention in Denver, Gravel finished fourth out of eight candidates on the initial ballot, with 71 votes out of a total 618; he trailed former Congressman and eventual winner Bob Barr, author Mary Ruwart, and businessman Wayne Allyn Root.[170] Gravel's position did not subsequently improve and he was eliminated on the fourth ballot.[170] Afterwards he stated that "I just ended my political career," but he vowed to continue promoting his positions as a writer and lecturer.[171] [edit] After the campaigns In June 2008, Gravel endorsed the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative, saying the measure would create a "citizens commission rather than a government commission" with subpoena power against top U.S. officials to "make a true investigation as to what happened" regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks.[172][173] In August 2008, Gravel was speaking to a crowd of supporters of Sami Al-Arian when he was caught on tape saying of Al-Arian's prosecutor, "Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is: picket him all the time. Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time."[174] Gravel was criticized for potentially involving the children of the prosecutor, and Al-Arian's family disavowed the sentiments.[174][175] Gravel defended Alaska Governor Sarah Palin after she was chosen as Republican presidential nominee John McCain's running mate in September 2008. He praised Palin's record in standing up to corruption among Alaskan Republicans, thought her national inexperience was an asset not a detriment, and predicted that the "Troopergate" investigation into whether she improperly fired a state official would "come out in her favor."[176] Gravel made clear he would not support or vote for either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden in the general election.[176] The following year, Gravel said that Palin's politics were "terrible, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she's a very talented person." He predicted that Palin would run for president in 2012 and that "she's going to surprise a lot of people."[111] >From mid-2008 through October 2009 Gravel gave several lectures at South Korean universities about the Korean National Initiative, a Korean adaption of the National Initiative Gravel has proposed in the United States. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
