I’m in touch with Mike Gravel’s campaign manager, I have a good relationship with the Gravel Campaign and I believe that I have a good shot at getting him to come on my radio show at the following; http://www.blogtalkradio.com/liberalpro.
You can see an interview I had with Sen. Gravel that I posted on OpEdNews.com at called "An Exclusive Interviw with Mike Gravel". This was before the campaign for 2008 really started to get moving. I saw in Mike Gravel a voice that echoed my concerns as well as many other people that believe in the Progressive movement. Mike Gravel needs a fresh look and we need to reevaluate his candidacy now that he is the only Progressive voice left.
We can pretty well agree that Sen. Gravel doesn’t have too much of a chance to capture the Democratic nomination. However, his candidacy leaves other options on the table for the Progressive community. A strong showing by Gravel could lead the way for a third party candidate. The thought of a third party provokes many Democrats to decry such an idea, believing that a Progressive bid would throw the election to the Republicans. Well that may be true, but if it indeed happened to become a reality, the Democrats have nobody to blame for that but the Democrats. The nasty business of excluding Kuchinich and Gravel from the debates is something that they must own. They can punish Florida for moving up their Primary date, but they willingly went along with the networks when they excluded two of their own. That was unconscionable. Let them reap the benefits. If an independent run by a Progressive would actually spoil the chances of the Democrats gaining the Presidency, they should have thought about that when they excluded the voice of the Progressive wing of the party.
Either we have a Democratic election or we don’t. Party politics have tainted this election as so many elections that have come before this one. If Gravel can garner enough delegates to bring the fight for delegates to the convention floor, we might see someone other than Obama and Clinton, the two corporate candidates, lead the Democratic ticket. They have both led nasty campaigns that foreshadow a possible nasty administration. We have already lived through eight years of dirty tricks and lies told to the American people on a daily basis, I don’t believe that Americans are looking for another four to eight years of dirty politics. I surely don’t believe that we are ready to accept 28 years of two families sharing the White House.
We must keep Senator Mike Gravel in this race. We need to make it known that we want him included in future debates. The corporate media should not have the last word on which candidates we should be allowed to hear. We have let them get away with far too much already. Gravel emerging as the last Progressive voice now gives us a focal point in regards to which candidate we should support (at least his right to be heard). We need to support Gravel regardless of which candidate actually gets our vote. As I said before, either we have a democracy or we don’t. We should press the issue and answer this question that we all have thought about at one time or another.
That’s the way I see it.
