To be honest, I really do not enjoy watching the Democratic debates. Whenever I'm flipping through channels and see that a Democratic Presidential debate is about to come on, my reaction is, "Who cares?" I'm just not in the mood to watch self-righteous Bush-bashing for an hour and a half. I wish that there were a conservative Democrat running who would challenge the other candidates' liberal assumptions, kind of like a Ron Paul on the Democratic side. Where's Lieberman these days? Oh yeah, he's not a Democrat anymore.
I will admit, however, that Mike Gravel makes watching Democratic debates a wee bit more interesting. I like how he makes the other Democratic candidates squirm, as when he called Obama out for taking money from lobbyists. You don't know what will be put on the table when Mike Gravel is on stage. The guy doesn't get much air-time in the debates, but he sure knows how to pack a punch with the time that he has.
Like many people, I first heard of Gravel from the first Democratic debate that I watched. I don't remember who was hosting it. I think it was Brian Williams. The moderator came to Gravel and said, "You voted for America to withdraw from the Vietnam War." I thought, "Man, this guy has been around."
Reading about him on wikipedia, I see that he was practically a one-man army during his political career. He read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. The Pentagon Papers were top secret documents about the Vietnam War. From what I've heard, they didn't contain much sensitive information about the time of their release, but they did have some dirt on the U.S. government's past actions on Vietnam. How they got published is an interesting story. In any case, wikipedia has a non-descriptive article on the "Gravel v. United States" U.S. Supreme Court case. I wonder if that relates to the Pentagon Papers incident. The wikipedia article also says the following:
"Also in 1971, Gravel embarked on a one-man filibuster against legislation renewing the military draft. Using various parliamentary maneuvers, Gravel was able to block the bill for five months before President Richard Nixon and Senate Republicans agreed to allow the draft to expire in 1973."
Like I said, a one-man army.
But he didn't always get what he wanted, probably because some of his ideas are, well, unique. The wikipedia article says:
"Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives. He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative would allow American citizens to become 'law makers.'"
Me legislating on the national level? Well, maybe that's better than lobbyists having a disproportionate say in things. But I doubt that the founding fathers would go with the idea.
Gravel appears to be a down-to-earth person. He has a working class Catholic background, and he drove a cab to put himself through college.
But too bad his Catholicism does not lead him to a pro-life stance on abortion. And here's what he said in August 2007 about gays in the military (if wikipedia is correct): "If you had any knowledge of history, ancient history, in Sparta they encouraged homosexuality because they fight for the people they love." Now that's an interesting stance. There's banning homosexuals from the military, there's "don't ask, don't tell," there's allowing them to serve, and there's encouraging homosexuality in the military. I wonder if Gravel ever had to clarify what he meant. Or maybe people didn't ask. They may have just said, "That's just Mike Gravel."
He does have at least one view that can be labeled conservative. He's actually the only Democratic candidate who supports the fair tax, which is abolishing the IRS and replacing the income tax with a national sales tax. He doesn't just go with the flow on Democratic positions, I can give him that. Of course, since he supports big government in the domestic sphere, who knows how high that national sales tax would be under his administration.
As far as persona goes, he is blunt, and I like that. But he seems so angry all of the time. Maybe he should try cracking a few jokes.
I like Gravel because he is actually interesting, in contrast to the other boring Democratic candidates (and Republican ones, except for Ron Paul). Would I vote for him? Absolutely not. I probably wouldn't have voted for him as Senator, though I admire his guts.
So have a good day! Sorry I used wikipedia too much on this post.