Mike Gravel in Interviews during 2018-2020
On Principles & Values:
Made debate donor count with help from opponent Williamson
Author and 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson's campaign used a fundraising email to help one of her primary opponents garner enough donors to qualify for the next round of debates. Williamson's campaign email asked recipients to support
former Sen. Mike Gravel, who is roughly 10,000 individual donors short of the threshold to qualify for the next round of Democratic debates."You may not have heard of him because he hasn't yet qualified for any debates," the email reads, referring to
Gravel. "But his voice is important."
The email, signed by Williamson, touts Gravel's body of work in Congress and "diverse and provocative" voice as reasons he should be on the debate stage next to her. "Thanks to you, I'm on the debate stage.
I'm using this platform, granted to me by you, to ask for your help," and asks donors to consider giving Gravel a dollar to increase his individual donor count.
[Gravel made the donor count but did not make the cut for the 20 slots in the July debate].
Source: The Hill e-zine on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 7, 2019
On War & Peace:
Filibustered to end the military draft
Staunchly opposing military aid to Cambodia, Gravel "paralyzed the Senate for two days" in a spontaneous filibuster in 1970, according to the Washington Post. He later trained his sights on the draft extension. As Gravel explained in a letter to the
New York Times, the resulting restriction on manpower would force the administration to reconsider its timetable and restrict any other overseas interventions. His filibuster ultimately succeeded in killing the draft.
Source: Jacobin Magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
May 2, 2019
On Principles & Values:
2008: YouTube political "video art" went viral
During his anti-war, anti-IRS, pro-direct-democracy presidential campaign of 2008, Gravel appeared in some of the most remarkable campaign spots of the 21st century (Gravel refused to call them ads). They came out in 2007, when YouTube was young and
weird online political videos still felt novel.So it stood out when Gravel released The Rock, a satori-inducing clip in which the former senator stares silently at the camera for more than a minute, then turns, heaves a rock into a body of water,
watches it splash, and walks away.
Or Fire, which begins with some brief footage of the candidate hiking through the woods before settling in for a Warholian seven-minute shot of the blaze.
But the best Gravel video, the one that truly captures
the late-hippie ethos of the campaign, is a mash-up of John Lennon, and Duck and Cover [entitled "power to the people vs give peace a chance"]. It made me feel like voting for the guy, and I say that as someone who never feels like voting for anyone:
Source: Reason Magazine on 2020 Democratic primary YouTube video
Mar 22, 2019
On Foreign Policy:
Bring critique of American imperialism to Democratic primary
There's a new must-follow Twitter account for those following the 2020 presidential race, and the man behind it is an 88-year-old man from Alaska who served in the
U.S. Senate in the 1970s, ran for president in 2008, and is talking about running again in 2020.Mike Gravel, who served two terms as a Democratic senator from Alaska between 1969 and 1981, launched the
Twitter account Tuesday night with a tweet stating "#Gravel2020."
"I am considering running in the 2020 Democratic primary," the second tweet said. "The goal will not be to win, but to bring a critique of
American imperialism to the Democratic debate stage. The website (http://mikegravel.org) is under construction. Official announcement will be in the coming days."
Source: Inquisitr.com blog on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 20, 2019
On Foreign Policy:
1971: end Vietnam involvement; 2008: end Mideast involvement
In the 2008 debates, Gravel delivered a searing indictment of the vast majority of his fellow candidates for their support of the Iraq war and their continued commitment to American interventionism in the Middle East. Thanks to his Senate background,
Gravel succeeded in getting into early debates where he served as a bit of an antiwar gadfly. His hostility to U.S. interventionism, however, dated back to a much earlier moment of national notoriety, in 1971, when Gravel "entered 4,000 pages of the
Pentagon Papers into the congressional record just before the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an injunction on publishing them in the press." The papers, a collection of internal DoD memos and other materials documenting the planning and execution of the
Vietnam War, offered a searing indictment of U.S. foreign policy, which is why the Nixon administration battled unsuccessfully to keep them secret.
Source: New York Magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 20, 2019
On War & Peace:
2008: searing indictment of Democratic support of Iraq war
David Oks, a high school senior who has previously run for mayor of his small New York town, said that he and several friends are avid listeners of the Chapo Trap House podcast, which mentioned Gravel in a recent episode.
About a week ago, he and a couple friends reached out to Gravel and asked if he would consider making another run for president. Their pitch was clear. "My friends and I were encouraging him to consider running for president with the idea
being that he would not try to contest any primaries, he would just try to get into the Democratic debates," he said.Oks and his friends were clearly inspired by Gravel's performance in the 2008 debates, where he delivered a searing indictment
of the vast majority of his fellow candidates for their support of the Iraq war and their continued commitment to American interventionism in the Middle East.
Source: New York Magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 20, 2019
Page last updated: Dec 01, 2021