Gravel Goes Back to the Top of the Slide

Jesse Walker | April 3, 2008

At this point I'm more interested in Mike Gravel's evolution into Max Headroom than his campaign for the presidency. Nonetheless, I recommend Newsweek's interview with the anti-IRS Democrat turned pro-universal-healthcare Libertarian, especially this enjoyably frank exchange:

Q: It sounds like you've been interested in leaving the Democratic Party for some time. Why didn't you make the move sooner?

A: It wouldn't have made any sense for me to enter the race as a Libertarian. [As a Democratic candidate], I got into the debates and got a fair amount of visibility up until General Electric [which owns NBC] along with the Democratic Party leadership, said they would get me out of the debates....

Q: So you didn't consider running as a Libertarian from the get-go?

A: I would have preferred to run as an independent or Libertarian or Green Party, but I knew that none of those candidates would have gotten any traction. So I used my position as a legitimate Democratic candidate to get my name out there.

I do like the idea of a Barr/Gravel left-right unity ticket to restore civil liberties and get out of Iraq. Or, alternately, a series of Sesame Street remakes starring Gravel as Ernie and Barr as Bert.