Former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) to announce Pres. Candidacy

[npincus]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20060413/pl_usnw/former_sen__mike_gravel_to_announce_candidacy_for_president106_xml


First Dem to make official announcement re: seeking Dem. nomination. I'm not familiar with this chap. Does anyone have any info or opinions?


Former United States senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska, 1969-1980) will announce his candidacy for the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States.


WHEN: Monday, April 17, 10 a.m. EDT


WHERE: The National Press Club, Zenger Room, 13th Floor, 529 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20045


Paid for by Mike Gravel for President 2008

[PaDem]

1. I'm fairly certain that Gravel was the Senator who...........

read material from the "Pentagon Papers" into the record on the senate floor one night while nobody else was around. He got the material from Daniel Ellsberg. Please anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Mr.Green93]

2. Spread the word. Gravel

will cover the competition.

[BigDDem]

3. Gravel

He rocks!

[newyawker99]

11. Hi BigDDem!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[gasperc]

4. please fix link

[npincus]

5. LINK here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20060412/pl_usnw/former_u_s__sen__mike_gravel_to_announce_his_candidacy_for_democratic_nomination_for_president_of_the_united_states123_xml

sorry, can't edit anymore.

[worldgonekrazy]

6. From wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel

Maurice Robert Gravel (born May 13, 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts), better known as Mike Gravel, was a Democratic U.S. Senator (1969-1981) from Alaska and is primarily known to history as the person who published a large portion of the Pentagon Papers. Gravel also nominated himself for Vice President of the United States at the 1972 Democratic National Convention and is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008.

During his first term in the Senate he authored of a book entitled Citizen Power. In the book he advocated the implementation of numerous social democratic schemes, including a guaranteed annual income (which he termed a "citizen's wage") of $5,000 per person, irrespective of whether the person worked.

After leaving the Senate having lost the Democratic primary in 1980, Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives, arguing that Americans have the capability to legislate responsibly and the Act and Amendment his organization has authored would allow for American citizens to become "law makers".

According to the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Mike Gravel appeared as a speaker on his National Initiative for Democracy at the June 2003 conference of a Holocaust-deniers' publication, The Barnes Review <1>.


-bold and underline emphasis added by me

Sounds kind of like a kook to me. Hell, its pretty much a requirement to be a politician in Alaska.

On edit: a holocaust denier?

[brentspeak]

8. You're quoting Wikipedia

The website which hands out free grains of salt with every article.

[worldgonekrazy]

10. Not quite

Yes, the snip I gave was from Wikipedia. But they were quoting the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies' "Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2003":

A prominent former United States Senator, Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), appeared as a speaker at the June 2003 conference of a Holocaust-deniers' publication, The Barnes Review.

snip

One of the speakers at the Barnes Review conference was Mike Gravel, former U.S. Senator from Alaska (1969-1981), who spoke on "The National Initiative" during the conference's "Political Options Seminar. During his years in the Senate, Gravel served on the Finance, Interior, and Environment & Public Works committees, chairing the subcommittees on Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution. According to his official biography, during his years in office Gravel became convinced that in America's current system of government, "the people's interests are subordinated to those of powerful special interests." As a result, in the early 1990s he established two nonprofit organizations, "Philadelphia II" and "Direct Democracy," which have undertaken a campaign known as "The National Initiative" to promote a Constitutional amendment to create a "Legislature of the People" that would "establish public policy and make laws outside the control of representative government but in parallel with our elected representatives."

Another speaker at the Barnes Review conference was Hutton Gibson, father of actor Mel Gibson, who spoke on "Traditional Catholicism" (one media report described his theme as "how to rebuild public respect for Christian institutions in the teeth of anti-Christian influences").

In April 2003, Barnes Review announced that it is the exclusive distributor for Jewish Supremacism, a new book by Holocaust-denier and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. The journal's web site advertises the book as including "a panoramic summary of fifty years of findings by Holocaust revisionists who have left the official version of 'the Holocaust' in shreds."

http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-denialreport.php

So we've got the David S. Wyman Institute implying that Gravel is a holocaust denier because he spoke at a conference organized the Barnes Review, an allegedly anti-semitic newsletter.

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. Here is an interesting article about the end of his Senate career:

Alaska's 1980 primary shows U.S. Senate seats not secure

May 5, 2004 - by Seth Linden

Washington, D.C. - Alaska is about to see its most competitive U.S. Senate race in more than two decades, which brings us back to 1980. That year proved that a sitting U.S. senator can be beaten by a member of his or her own party in a political primary.

It's a lesson anyone running for office may want to consider. "There's no reason for hopelessness in Alaska,” says the smiling candidate in the grainy 1960s-era film, as he stands surrounded by children on a beach. “Not when you see so many smiling faces as this. This is our future."

If there's anyone who knows about the importance of winning a primary in Alaska, it's Mike Gravel. In 1968, Gravel, beat the legendary sitting U.S. Sen. Ernest Gruening in the Democratic primary.

Only 38 years old, Gravel used a television “info-mercial” of sorts to win the voters over and to convince them he was a better choice than the 81-year-old Gruening, the so-called Father of Alaska Statehood.

more: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Z54OYBBl0ZYJ:www.ktuu.com/CMS/anmviewer.asp%3Fa%3D1221%26z%3D11+Mike+Gravel+Clark+Gruening+1980+primary&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6

[jarab]

9. Barely remember the fella ...

Going on 76 years old. And, where's he been all this time? I feel this story - this candidate - is basically insignificant in the big picture.
Sometimes we never "get over ourselves".
jmho
...O...

[Toots]

12. I think this is wonderful news

This guy will raise some eyebrows and maybe cause some discussion to be had. I doubt if he stands a chance in hell of even coming close to winning a single primary but he will get some air time and by the sounds of it he ain't afraid to open his mouth. There is a lot to say about the crooks in power and the more out there saying it the better...

[Ignacio Upton]

13. Never heard of him

It's interesting, however, that he was involved in the Pentagon Papers. Unfortunately, he'll be 76 next month, and if elected he would be the oldest elected President in history.

[skipos]

14. Which could be said for McCain if he was elected, I believe.

He'd be the oldest elected Pres.

[NJ Democrats]

15. Intresting

Didn't sound too bad, until I heard about his Holocaust Denial thing. Screw him.

[Nutmegger]

16. Um, sounds decent but what's with the holocaust denial thing?

*sigh*

[harpboy_ak]

17. Gravel was, is a loony

One of those carpetbaggers, like former Gov. Steve Cowper, who just passed through for a couple of years. He was a real estate boomer who got involved in state politics, then ran against anti-war Sen Ernest Gruening, and was defeated in a primary by Gruening's grandson, who was defeated in the general by banker Frank Murkowski, who then appointed his daughter to replace him when he was elected Governor. Thank goodness we have less than a year of this highly unpopular and totally out of touch Repugnican's term left. Even the Repuke-controlled Legislature hates him.

But back to Gravel... He made headlines with some kind of extra-marital activity about the same time that Gary Hart did the same, which is one reason why he lost the primary. He was a grandstander with a lot of goofy ideas. He opposed Gruening's anti-war stance but was willing to read the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record in the middle of the night in order to make headlines. He was all about Mike Gravel, which annoyed many Alaskans. Nobody missed him when he didn't come back to Alaska after losing his seat.

[cleofus1]

18. this is the view from anchorage

http://www.adn.com/front/story/7625601p-7537297c.html

"I think I can beat Hillary," he said, referring to Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y., a likely Democratic candidate for president. He said he'd like to challenge her on her votes for the war, for the Patriot Act and for tax cuts.

Gravel, the last Democrat sent to Washington by Alaskans, served in the Senate from 1969 through 1980, when he was defeated in the primary. Republican Frank Murkowski won the seat that November.

After the election, Gravel did some work as a consultant, but he said he never had much passion for making money. He stayed out of the spotlight for a while."

[cleofus1]

19. also

"Gravel is remembered in Alaska for, among other things, proposing the erection of a Teflon-domed city near Mount McKinley.

In the Senate, he opposed the Vietnam War and fought to end the draft. He played a walk-on role in the Pentagon Papers drama of the 1970s. As the government was moving to stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from printing the top-secret documents, Gravel tried to publicize the documents by reading them on the Senate floor. His colleagues shut him down, so he convened a night meeting of his Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds and started reading them into the record.

Sen. Ted Stevens, who feuded bitterly with Gravel over a landmark Alaska lands bill and everything else, often talks about Gravel when he's feeling low about the fight to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The 1980 Alaska lands act did not open ANWR, but Stevens fought for its passage anyway, saying it was the best compromise Alaska was going to get. He says he had a promise from Democratic leaders to pass ANWR later. Gravel opposed the lands bill, saying it didn't allow enough resource development."