The End

Former Senator Mike Gravel, on May 25th, 2008, acknowledged the truth for the last time in his political career. “This is the end. I started in politics at 15 years old, and this is the end of my political career. Right today. Right this afternoon.”

Asked if there was anything that he would have liked to have done differently in this campaign, Gravel said, “No, no, no, we played it straight. My style of politics is just to tell people what you are, what you believe in, and what you want to lead to.”

Mike Gravel’s political career may have ended on a warm day in May 2008, but it began when, in 1945, as a young man at age 15, he began passing out flyers and volunteering with local political campaigns in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. It continued when he headed to Alaska in 1956, leaving the Kennedy-controlled politics of Massachusetts, in the hopes of launching his own political career. Alaska was the perfect place to do it; when Gravel first arrived there, it was in the pre-statehood phase and didn’t even have any Senators yet.

Mike Gravel was elected to the Alaska House of Representative in 1962, and he tried to make the most of the power of his office in order to help people. Gravel said at the HRC/LOGO debate in August 2007, “My first piece of legislation in the State Legislature was the creation of the Human Rights Commission of Alaska. I fought hard, I used political capital. And what I learned is that when you use political capital, more capital comes to you. The Human Rights Commission dealt with gays and dealt with the black community. That was my first accomplishment, and I felt it deeply.”

Mike Gravel rose to become Speaker of the House in 1965, and, as Speaker, he furthered his attempts to improve the lives of his fellow citizens. During his campaign for the Alaskan House, he said, he probably visited more Native American villages than any other white man ever had. He learned from the Native Americans that their children, when they reached puberty, were being flown off to other, far away states to get an education. So, as Speaker of the House, Gravel authored and fought to pass (successfully) legislation that established the structure and budget for a regional high school system for rural Alaska, permitting native students to receive their education near their homes rather than travel to the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ schools outside Alaska.

In 1968, Mike Gravel was elected as a United States Senator. He went to Washington an idealistic young man who desired to get things done and make a difference. From 1969 to 1973, when Gravel was a freshman Senator, was when he accomplished some of his greatest Senatorial triumphs. These triumphs include the Alaska Oil Pipeline, which has been responsible for 20% of the United States’s oil supply and whose economic benefits substantially raised the quality of life for the people of Alaska. Gravel also released the Pentagon Papers upon the public record, with the hope that it would bring the War in Vietnam to a speedier conclusion and with the fear that he would be prosecuted for his actions. The Pentagon Papers were a top-secret, 7000 page study that detailed the history of the decision-making and lies of our government during the Vietnam War.

Gravel also tried filibustering military draft renewal legislation to bring the Vietnam War more quickly to an end. In addition, during his career in the Senate, Senator Gravel successfully fought to stop nuclear testing in the North Pacific, organized citizen opposition to nuclear power, and was involved with many major pieces of environmental legislation passed during that time, due to his service on the Environment and Public Works Committee. In every act of his public life, Senator Mike Gravel had the greater public good in mind.

In 1981, Mike Gravel lost his Senate seat. Heart-broken, and disillusioned with representative government, he fell into a depression. He said, of his experiences at that time, “Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn’t know what I could do.” All through his life, it seems that it was of the utmost importance for Mike Gravel to be important. That was one of the reasons that Gravel so enjoyed passing out flyers as a youth in Springfield; it made him feel important. As Gravel said in a Washington Post news article, “I loved the recognition. I liked the way people listened when I talked about a candidate . . . It gave me confidence.”

Gravel was drawn back towards politics. In 1989, he reentered politics when he founded The Democracy Foundation, which advocates direct democracy, and began promoting “The National Initiative for Democracy”, which would allow Americans to become lawmakers in partnership with their elected officials and make laws on the federal level. The National Initiative for Democracy, and the empowerment of the people, would become the cause of his life from that day forwards.

In April 2006 (with the purpose originally being to promote the NI4D), Mike Gravel launched his Presidential campaign for the Democratic nomination, with the NI4D as the centerpiece but also calling for an immediate end to the occupation in Iraq, a “Fair Tax”, a single-payer and universal healthcare system, full LGBT rights (insisting, “What we need in this world is more love!”), an end to the War on Drugs, a restoration of human rights and civil rights, and a fight against the military-industrial complex. The campaign soon became more than just an attempt to promote the National Initiative. In the Washington Post article that I cited earlier, Gravel also said, after meeting with young people enthusiastic about his message, “It suddenly occurred to me that if they got so excited listening to me about the war and the National Initiative, that I could convince other people, too — I could actually win. And that’s when I started believing, too.”

Mike Gravel participated in several televised debates, making passionate declarations such as, “The only thing worse than a soldier dying in vain is more soldiers dying in vain!”, concerning the Iraq War, and “Representative Government is broken!”, concerning the NI4D. Although he was lauded by some for speaking “truth to power”, Gravel’s efforts were all for naught, and he didn’t move above 1% in any polls. To add to that, media outlets began cutting him out of debates. Whether a sinister motive was behind it is open to debate, but I do know that many of these media outlets are owned by corporations that benefit from the military-industrial complex, something which Gravel had sworn to fight. Despite these trials, during his campaign Gravel managed to enlighten thousands of people, including myself, and spread his deeply-heartfelt message.

In March 2008, Mike Gravel abandoned the Democratic Party for the Libertarian Party. He wrote, in an official campaign email, “The fact is, the Democratic Party today is no longer the party of FDR. It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism — all of which I find anathema to my views.” He also believed that the Libertarian Party would embrace his proposal “The National Initiative for Democracy.” After all, what would be more liberating than to have the people empowered, to be empowered yourself? Gravel began competing for the Libertarian Presidential nomination; his main competitors were Bob Barr, Mary Ruwart, and Wayne Allyn Root.

Mike Gravel made his last debate appearance on May 24th, 2008, the day before the Libertarian Convention. The debate was covered by C-Span, as would be the convention the next morning.

May 25th rolled around. The convention began taking ballots. On the first ballot, Gravel came in fourth. On the second, third, and fourth ballots, Gravel came in fourth. His votes held steady at the 71 or 73 mark. After the fourth ballot, his name was struck from the ballot. His attempt to win the Libertarian nomination had failed. And he gracefully conceded: “This is the end. I started in politics at 15 years old, and this is the end of my political career. Right today. Right this afternoon.” He joked that, even though his political career was over, he wasn’t dead yet. Gravel said that he would continue to promote the causes that he passionately believes in, and enlighten the American people about his grand proposal, the NI4D, so that the American people may one day empower themselves…

…And so ended Former Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel’s career in politics.

You can see it all through his political career: Mike Gravel was not just a politician. He was, and is, above all else, a human being. Above being a Senator from Alaska, above being a citizen of the United States, above being French Canadian, above being all of his other roles in life, he is a human being. He emphasizes with his fellow human beings, no matter their country or race or gender or sexual orientation or whatever else divides us. All through his political career, Mike Gravel embodied the common human decency which should govern all of our actions.

Senator Gravel was also a progressive idealist. What is a progressive idealist? An idealist is someone who sees things as they should be, or, in H.L. Mencken’s words, “An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.” If you are an idealist, and then you add to that quality a progressive viewpoint, then you are a “progressive idealist.” You see things as they should be, and then wish to improve upon that. You see into the future and far beyond. Progressive idealists are the farthest reaching of visionaries, because they see the improvements that should be made before even the first improvements are made yet.

This may be the end for Mike, but this is not the end. The future, a future which I hope will see the National Initiative empower the people, awaits us. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The National Initiative for Democracy