Mike Gravel Former Alaska Senator Annouces Candidacy for POTUS

[kpete]

Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel to Announce His Candidacy for Democratic Nomination for President of the United States Wed Apr 12, 12:59 PM ET

News Advisory:

WHO: Mike Gravel for President 2008

WHAT: Press Conference where 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.

WHERE: The National Press Club, Zenger Room, 13th Floor, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20045, 202-662-7500, 202-662-7512 - Fax

Paid for by Mike Gravel for President 2008

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

Mike Gravel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
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".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel

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>.

On April 13, 2006, Gravel announced that he would, on April 17, become a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election.

[K8-EEE]

1. Didn't Biden Say He Was Running...

on Bill Maher last week?

[NYCGirl]

3. Yes, he announced it even before that, too. I think it was on "This Week"

on ABC.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Biden announced?

:boring:

[ourbluenation]

2. Biden announced on Real time last week....but whatever, carry on.

[ThomWV]

4. I'm Please, Now, who the hell is he?

[XNASA]

5. He's the dude from Bedrock, right?

[mia]

6. Here's a recent photo and link.

http://ni4d.us/people/gravel2.htm

[greyl]

7. more on his speech at The Barnes Review conference:

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."
http://www.tzemachdovid.org/vaadhatzala/shoah.shtml

Real® media audio of his speech here: www.barnesreview.com/Conference/21_morning.html

[longship]

8. So is this guy a Holocaust denier?

Or did he just speak at a conference about his pet project, Philadelphia II?

I can't make heads or tails on this. What's the real deal with this guy?

[stevietheman]

10. I have mixed feelings about this guy.

As somebody who is enthusiastic about making our democracy "more direct", I like his input into that movement. However, I do believe that his National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D) was developed in an undemocratic manner, that is, without sufficient public input during its development process. Further, I think that we need to expand citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives to the states that don't have them (e.g., Texas and New York State) before moving on to considering this for the federal level.

From what I've been able to gather about him personally, and even alluded to by his self-nom for V.P., this man may well be so self-centered that the American people will more likely laugh at his candidacy than anything else.

But the bottom line for me is that this will move the issue of direct democracy into the limelight for a period of time, and that is a plus as far as I'm concerned.

By the way, for those of you interested in issues related to "direct democracy", I administer a discussion board for just that purpose: D2 Discussion Zone -- please feel free to check it out and even register to join in the discussion.

[BlueStater]

11. According to Wikipedia, he was born in May of 1930

He'll be 78! Is this a joke?