I'd like to start by saying that I like the Democratic field. We have a good list of candidates to choose from and while they can all be critiqued from the left, in the end I can see myself lining up behind the eventual nominee [even Joe Biden] against whichever thug the GOP throws at us. With that said, I'd like to suggest a good reason for throwing some [easy] support behind the Gravel campaign as well as explain the type of support I'm asking for. The hints are in the title, and the details are below the fold.
Despite his crazy idea about a "progressive national sales tax" [an oxymoron that couldn't even be implemented fairly anyway] and abolishing the IRS [which does need a restructuring as well as more support to go after the wealthy tax cheats], in everything else he's pretty much a doctrinaire liberal [whoops, and the second plank of his Social Security platform sucks, too]. He supports marriage equality and the repeal of the DOMA; he supports ending the Iraq War yesterday; his foreign policy focuses on reconciling Israel and Palestine in what I deem a very fair way [recognition of Israel's right to exist and a Palestinian state given aid to get its standard of living and economy to equal Israel's] and dealing with actual terrorists like Bin Ladin; opposes the raiding of the Social Security Trust Fund that the cons have enjoyed doing so much over the past few decades; his global warming policy is highly internationalistic; his immigration policy works on getting illegal immigrants naturalized fairly and legally as well as attacks the "free" trade failures that helped create this mess such as NAFTA; national healthcare vouchers [government covers you, you choose the doctor]; changing drugs from a crime problem to a medical problem; giving NCLB the shaft and properly funding the education system; and licensing and training gun owners. While you might disagree with him on some of these issues [I know I do, to a greater or lesser degree], it's hard to argue that he's not one of the lefter candidates in the race.
For this reason, I'd like to see Gravel gain some momentum, if only to scare the living bejeezus out of the Beltway and shift the Overton Window to the left, especially on the Iraq War. One of the biggest problems I'm seeing on Gravel forums are the slimeballs that were the Naderites in 2000 bemoaning how "the parties are the same" and "it's Gravel or bust!" They irritate me, and they need to be marginalized. What better way to do that than aggressively campaign for Gravel and get some good Democrats on board like the ones here at dkos? If you don't agree with me... well, that's ok. We're all on the same team here, trying to get Democrats elected. As I said, unlike the Naderites I don't think the Dem field "sucks" or is "puke-green". If you think I'm onto something, here's what to do.
There's no point in googlebombing his name. His site is already the first hit, and anyone searching for him knows something about him already. It's the low- to moderate- information voters I'm thinking about who are gonna be searching for information on "president 2008" to get access to the candidates. Fortunately, Gravel's site when I started this [yesterday] already had a pretty good standing for that search [15th on Google, 9th on Yahoo]. Since then his site has gone to 14th on Google and 6th on Yahoo [you can track that information on this page]. So please, add a sig to your forum accounts with "Mike Gravel for President 2008" in it. And tell your friends, too!