Presidential Debate to Air October 30th – But No Gravel

The 8th Democratic presidential debate is just days away. It will be held in Philadelphia on the campus of Drexel University on Tuesday October 30th at 9 PM to 11 PM, EDT (so that’s 8 PM to 10 PM here in Texas).

It promises to be a real barnburner because the Iran issues that the Bush regime raised most recently have yet to be really debated. Go and take a look at the MSNBC website where the announcement and analysis can be found.

Yep, the seven Democratic candidates will meet again to . . .wait . . . yes, according to the MSNBC article the Democrats have seven candidates. Are there not eight?

Last I heard there were eight Democratic presidential candidates. Eight fine candidates.

If you do a search on the page for Mike Gravel, it highlights a graphic at the bottom of the page, but Gravel is not mentioned in the text of the article at all. So I had to find out and this is what I found:

NBC Bars Sen. Mike Gravel From Democratic Debate

In campaign news, former Senator Mike Gravel is protesting a decision by NBC News to bar him from next Tuesday's debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia. NBC said it made the decision in part because Gravel hadn't raised over one million dollars. Gravel said "The fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's leading military contractors, is frightening and certainly smacks of censorship directed at the most outspoken critic of the influence that the military-industrial complex holds over this great nation."

That is vintage Gravel. Of course General Electric owns NBC and is itself a company that has profited from the Iraqi Civil War. It would take a bully like GE to dictate to the American people who they will and will not be able to see in the debate.

They bring good things to life, you know.

But wait, there’s more.

Mike Gravel has a huge fan in Nashua hedge fund manager Gregory Chase, who has by himself, spent $100,000 for Gravel’s presidency. He “has sent brochures to thousands of Nashua households, has printed "Gravel '08" yard signs and bumper stickers and is working on a letter to New Hampshire residents outlining Gravel's position on tax reform.”

Through ads that he has placed, he has also offered NBC $1,000,000 if they will allow Gravel to participate in the debate. Yes, that’s a one followed by 6 zeros, a million smackeroos.

Why does he do this? He told this to the Concord Monitor:

“This is a guy with real ideas who's got a communications problem. And I can help.”

But NBC has not answered his ads. But going on how they number the presidential candidates in this article, I think the answer is a big fat no.

If you look at the Monitor’s story, it appears that Chase has a You Tube video so I checked and lo and behold there it was. Chase explaining all about why he supports Gravel, what he is doing for him, and reading the letters that he FedExed to NBC executives, Drexel U., and Howard Dean. [Strong suggestion, watch until the end].



So maybe, just maybe, we haven’t seen the end of this. NBC is going to start to look bad if it is perceived that they are trying to be “The Decider”. We know how unpopular Deciders can be, especially when they have all the power and all the money.

You can be part of the equation. There is an online petition to sign demanding that they let Mike Gravel participate in the debate. Sign it HERE

These are the email addresses of NBC executives and others. Let them know what you think of their role as The Decider.

chuck.todd@nbcuni.com, viewerservices@msnbc.com, directors@corporate.ge.com, ombudsperson@corporate.ge.com, jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com, lynn.calpeter@nbcuni.com, steve.capus@nbcuni.com

Tell the Democratic Party that we can’t let corporations effectively decide for us who should run for president:

http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contact

CNN/YouTube: Making History in a Presidential Debate Format

So what did you think of the CNN/YouTube Presidential Debate? I thought it was a refreshingly different way for us to see these candidates, one of whom will be our next president. The debate was not framed by the same stale questions from the same old journalists. We as a people have among us some who can come up with some really interesting questions, and frame them like no journalist can imagine.

The moderator, Anderson Cooper, put twists on some of the questions and sprang those twists on other candidates. I didn’t appreciate that as much and I think it only served to confuse.

And unlike the past debates where I was well satisfied with any of the candidates, I can now differentiate between some of these people. Maybe it’s hearing them again and again, or maybe it’s hearing them talk in this first in history format.

Stick a fork in Mike Gravel, he’s done. He’s been a great one for comic relief and sticking it to the front runners, but he’s now beginning to be more of a pain than anything else. That he came out for a federal sales tax is just as regressive as you can get. He’s probably mentioned it before, but it really hit home with me last night. It’s a Republican/Libertarian idea whose time should never come. Percentage wise, as in percent of personal income, it’s the poor who would pay more of their income into this, and the rich who would pay the least.

I’m also a little concerned about Barack Obama. All energy sources should certainly NOT be on the table. Nuclear energy is not an option. We still don’t have a way to deal with nuclear waste and the laws of physics say that there won’t be any with our current state of technology. And really, this comes on the heels of an earthquake in Japan that resulted in damage to thir largest nuclear power plant and the release of radioactive water. Barack still speaks well and looks good, but now I am wondering about substance and his depth of understanding with regard to science.

And the last question pointed out something that has been obvious to me for quite some time. Each was asked to say something nice about the candidate to their left, and something not so nice. When it got to Dennis Kucinnich, who stood on the far right of the stage, he joked that there was no one further left than he, and that is quite true. Of all the candidates, Kucinnich is by far the one furthest to the left on the political spectrum. While I think America is ready for a progressive president, I don’t think they are ready for Dennis Kucinnich and he would be the one who would probably give most advantage to the Republican opponent. Don’t get me wrong, I still like him, I just have a problem with his chances of winning the election.

So I vote Yea for this format. I’d love to see how the Republican candidates will handle themselves on this set up. The last time I checked the RNC has not said whether it would sanction their debate, scheduled for September 17th. I dare them not to sanction it.

I double dog dare them.

Mike “Old Coot” Gravel For President

This is for my friend Susan who let me watch the Democratic Presidential debate at her house last night. I can confirm that Geri’s lasagna was delightful – I had two helpings rendering me half full.

Susan was so taken by former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel’s rants that she posted about it on her “not-a-blog”, and I quote:

“I'm getting me a button that says, ‘Vote for the Old Coot.’”

Well someone agrees with her because they very lovingly edited out all non-Gravel footage of the debate and submitted this 6 minute condensation to You Tube. In my previous post on the debate, I gave him the “Best Comic Relief” award. The editor goes one up on me and calls him “Best in Show”.

I think he’s right, but you be the judge.