The Gravel Pit

A spurned "presidential" candidate hosts his own debate.

by Jason Tomassini

Politics

With the bright lights and protests outside Mandell Theater serving as a distant but looming backdrop, U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel (D—Alaska) spent last night in the shadows. Gravel was shut out of the Democratic Presidential Debate for not meeting MSNBC's minimum requirements of 14 visits to New Hampshire, 5 percent support in the polls and $1 million in campaign funds (this, although Gravel claims he has made 20 visits to New Hampshire). So rather than accept his rejection, Gravel decided that if NBC wouldn't allow him to stand beside the other candidates or broadcast his stance worldwide, he would take matters into his own hands.

With about 100 supporters at the downstairs theater of World Café Live, a half-block away from the cool-kids party, Gravel enlisted the help of three projection screens, a TiVo and a live streaming webcast on www.gravel2008.us to be a distant part of Tuesday night's debate. Gravel stood onstage, with his sign-toting supporters sitting Indian-style on the floor beneath him, and aired the debate live. When he wanted to respond to one of Tim Russert or Brian Williams' questions or interject one of the candidate's answers, he paused the broadcast and made his comments.

I know, it sounds ridiculous and I was skeptical, too. But it turned out to be about as effective a debate experience I've seen. Gravel wasn't constricted by time limits; he could rebut at any time and the audience could interact openly with a real, live presidential candidate (OK, "candidate" — he's generated just $287,000 in campaign funds). He even opened the bar for his supporters, which proved to be a wise move given the chorus of boos and groans that accompanied most of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's responses and the applause and cheers following Gravel's far-left colleague Dennis Kucinich's answers.

What resulted was a remarkably candid forum — almost like Mystery Science Theater 3000 for politics (without nearly as many laughs) — where Gravel (who, at 77, has been around the block) lambasted the current election process and the double-speak of Democratic candidates. The Republicans seemed of little interest to Gravel; in fact, Mike Gravel seemed of little interest to Gravel.

With the exception of his opening address where he showed slides outlining his stances on various issues and criticized GE (NBC's parent company) and its role in the military-industrial complex, Gravel did little self-promotion.

Instead, when he felt a candidate was being misleading or using politician-speak, he pointed it out. His favorite target, and clearly he is not alone, was Clinton. Gravel paused Clinton's response to one of the opening questions about Iran four times to voice his criticism.

"Forgets carrots and sticks," he said, alluding to Clinton's strange talking point. "Talk to them like human beings, just like us!"

Gravel's positions are about as liberal as it gets. He doesn't consider Iran to be a nuclear threat, supports the Progressive Fair Tax and universal health care. He says he would cut the country's nuclear stockpile in half (not quite Kucinich's anti-nuke campaign, but close). But perhaps Gravel's most endearing quality is his rational look at leadership, one that doesn't pander and, unfortunately, one that will ultimately knock him out of the race, if it hasn't already done so.

"The art of politics is to dramatize problems and have people assume you have a solution," he said. "They don't have any, if they did, they would tell you. I have no magic to break the military industrial complex. I know how to do it but I know I need the American people to stand up and want to enact change themselves."

Given the forum's unorthodox format, there were some hitches. Gravel took his rare opportunity to run his own show by being a bit verbose. He fell way behind the live broadcast on the TiVo'd version, reaching the second intermission around 10:45 p.m. At that point his handlers rushed him into the Q&A portion where the audience got to ask unscreened questions. A few people filed out at this time, realizing they weren't going to get through the whole debate before midnight.

During this segment, Gravel offered his stance on education, calling for America to match its international counterparts in length of school days and school years. He then decided to resume the TiVo'd debate, which was entering the lightning round. Williams' first question: "Do you believe we in this country need to extend the school day and/or extend the school year, and will you commit to it?"

No, Gravel isn't going to be the next president, but that doesn't mean he can't run circles around the people who will be.

(editorial@citypaper.net)