A believable candidate who is not PC, not rehearsed, with fresh ideas and the courage to voice them...

I just listened to Diane Rehm on NPR and she had as her guest this morning, Mike Gravel, the eighth democratic candidate, the candidate who was omitted from last night’s debate and the one who is not getting the attention he deserves…

If you’d listened to Mike during the debate, he usually spends his time spewing invective at the other candidates….so you don’t really get an opportunity to learn where he stands on the issues.

This old-timer, 78 years young, the former Senator of Alaska, has no money, no organization and very little traction or support that is, until you hear him make his stand on the issues.

And when you hear him, you discover that there’s a lot more to Mike Gravel than meets the eye. In fact, he is amazingly informed, facile, and eloquent on virtually every issue spewing forth statistics and ideas that have barely been raised in this campaign to date.

Among his favorite charges, Mike claims that the rest of the candidates are beholding to special interests and lobbyists already, before they even win the Primaries….

He claims to be an old-fashioned candidate in the mold of FDR.

But when a caller took exception to the fact that during the forums, his positions are never clarified, he agreed claiming that in an hour or 90 minute debate, he is lucky to get perhaps four minutes.

And he apologizes for losing his temper with the other candidates.

But on Diane’s show, Mike Gravel revealed himself to be an extraordinary fresh experience, a man with original ideas who is not beholding to anyone and what’s more, is totally believable…. Mike says what he believes and he backs up his arguments with fresh, original thinking that would send a legion of democratic or republican apologists back to their Congressional Records or history books…..A very refreshing point of view when compared to all the cookie cutter textbook approaches from the ‘over coached’ and overly correct candidates who hew to their scripts and whom we never really learn about…

He is definitely informed and he is definitely a thinker and you know what, I liked about eighty percent of what he had to say.

It is sad that all candidates do not get the same opportunity to get the kind of exposure they need to get their points across and that the process has become so besotten because of the need for millions of dollars to do what is necessary to build an organization, open offices in all the primary states and run ads…..

It is clear that we never would find out what Mike stands for if he didn’t get this opportunity to stand tall and get into detail about what he thinks is wrong and how he aims to fix it.

I would advise any thinking person who really cares what happens to this country to check out Diane Rheem’s broadcast on NPR that was on today at 10:00 AM (East Coast)…You may not like what he has to say but you have to respect the fact that his positions are thought out and that this is a man with real conviction. How many others can you truly say that about with the exception of Dennis Kucinich, who I always said is undervalued for his ideas and courage.

When Diane asked him to explain where he’s going to get the money from, Mike optimistically said from the people who learn what he stands for.

Right now, he has about 50,000 dollars in his war chest.

In closing, Diane asked him whether he would consider as a running mate, Ron Paul, the maverick from the Republican side, he didn’t say no but that he was concentrating more on winning the democratic primary.

A great show….and, believe me, Mike Gravel deserves a hearing…

And, after this, I am going to send a thank you note to Diane Rehm for making it possible.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon