Mike Gravel: After Debate, Little-Known Democrat Draws a Crowd

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/28/835/

Mike Gravel: After Debate, Little-Known Democrat Draws a Crowd
by Joe Lauria

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Yesterday, Gravel said his debate appearance gave a public that does not know him or his record “a taste of the kind of leadership I can provide.” He spoke by telephone from San Diego, where he flew immediately after the debate to address the California Democratic Convention yesterday.

“What will make a difference in this campaign is not money, it’s not celebrity, it is a person who is prepared to tell the American people the truth,” he said. “The people are fed up and as president I will do a 180 and move this country in the opposite direction.”

A native of Springfield, Mass., Gravel served two terms in the Senate, representing Alaska from 1969 to 1981 . He made his mark as a fierce Vietnam war critic who staged a one-man filibuster that led to the end of the military draft. He drafted legislation to end funding for the war and released the Pentagon Papers, which detailed government deception over Vietnam, at the end of June 1971.

The Nixon administration decided not to prosecute Gravel for having Beacon Press in Boston publish the papers, though the US Supreme Court ruled that Gravel could release them only inside the Capitol, based on the Constitution’s speech and debate clause.

Gravel today is a fierce critic of the Iraq war and government secrecy.

“This war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis,” he said in the debate. Believing that Congress has the power to both declare and end wars, he called for a law to end the war.

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