Mike Gravel, running for prez, was on Wash. Journal this a.m.

[donsu]

I had never heard him speak before. I agreed with everything he said.

will this be the first and last time anyone gets to hear from him?

[blm]

1. I'm looking forward to some solid debate points from him.

Many Dems prefer to make their decisions based on debates. I don't expect this election to be different in that regard.

[Nite Owl]

2. Hope this will be

rerun. I like the guy, where has he been or is he just ignored so we don't hear what he has to say? I hope that he is there for the primary debates.
He spoke at the dems winter meeting, that's the first I had heard of him.

[Skidmore]

3. The MSM and the MS Dems have already slapped the label of

"fringe" on him.

[donsu]

4. well, we should slap it right back off him - he didn't say

anything fringe

[Nite Owl]

10. Not too long ago

those opposed to the war and this administration were considered fringe too. Now we are downright mainstream! There is hope, we gotta feel some sense of hope or just give it up.

[TahitiNut]

5. His positions on taxes and Social Security are total neocon crap.

He advocates a national sales tax and 'privatization' of Social Security - two of the worst economic positions I know of - total Bush League.

[donsu]

6. I didn't hear him say that about SS. if so, my interest in him disappeared

nt

[Czolgosz]

7. From his website (sounds sorta fringe to me) not that I don't respect his anti-war stance

"THE FAIR TAX

There is only one one entity in the U.S. that pays taxes; the individual. Business and corporations do not, they merely collect taxes from the consumer and pass it on to the government. The Fair Tax proposal calls for eliminating the IRS and the Income Tax and replacing it with a progressive national Sales Tax of between 19 and 23 percent on newly manufactured items. To compensate for necessities, such as food, there would be a “prebate” for families below the poverty line. An average family of three that lives below the poverty live would receive an additional $3,000 a year.

SOCIAL SECURITY

Senator Mike Gravel wants to put real money in the Social Security Trust Fund, investing it properly and identifying the interests of individual beneficiaries so they can leave their surplus funds to their heirs. He also calls on Congress to stop raiding the Social Security Trust Fund. This is key to ensuring that Social Security will be around long after the Baby Boomers are gone for the next generation of Americans who have paid into it."

[donsu]

8. yep, my interest in him has totally disappeared

nt

[Cosmocat]

9. Liberatarian ...

more so than "neocon" ... His international positions are completely against neocon positions ...

I kept thinking he was kind of a "mixed breed" liberatarian/democrat ... You don't see THAT too often ...

[TahitiNut]

11. The kind of revisionist 'libertarian' ...

... who espouses dumping four trillion dollars into the stock market is, imho, just another flavor of neocon. Perhaps the kindest name would be "neolibertarian"but there's absolutely no resemblance to the conventional libertarian who would abolish the corporation and the corporate state and corporate welfare and the 'personhood' of corporations. Hayek would roll over in his grave. The (so-called) "Libertarian Party" is merely a cover for the "drown it in the bathtub" group - leaving only the entitlement of corporatism and an "ownership society" where human beings are mere commodities.

"Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and power-adoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism; and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment, appeal to the young and all those others who believe that some changes are desirable if this world is to become a better place. A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some which are not available on equal terms to others."
—— F. A. Hayek, 1956 Preface to "The Road to Serfdom"