Jan 28 2008
Mike Gravel: Depressing America one college at a time
Our favorite cranky uncle is back campaigning to students. This time former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska is targeting Florida’s youth in his race for the Democratic presidential bid. And he brought a motivating message to Florida Atlantic University today.
Gravel told students not to count on him to bring change in Washington. In fact, he told the 25 to 50 students that drifted in and out of the 20-minute diatribe to abandon hope that any candidate can help the U.S.
“I don’t want to disabuse anybody, but there is no hope for change by anybody running for president today, including myself,” the Alaskan said.
If you want something done at all, do it yourself, is what Gravel touted as he discussed his plan for a national initiative process that would let citizens propose federal laws through a referendum. He said:
“If you want to get control of your lives, if you want to get control of your government, you have to become lawmakers. It’s that simple.”
This “ask not what your government can do for you–really,” anti-hope, speech mirrors one he gave Stetson University Saturday. In that informal speech his cynicism somehow managed to liken current election antics in to Russia:
“If Russia ran elections like we do in the U.S., we’d be criticizing Russia,” he told the crowd. “If you saw how bad these caucuses were, as far as how undemocratic, . . . it’s an abomination.”
Despite America’s communist leanings, the resident hanger-on of the Democratic race told Florida’s DeLand-Deltona Beacon he plans to stay with this “abomination” of an election until the August Democratic National Convention. Gravel als said he will keep his candidacy alive until the Nov. 3 General Election as an Independent–that is if he does not get the Democratic party nomination.
Abandon hope? Cynicism? Communist Russia? Gravel should stick to the college campus circuit. At least he can join the depressed co-eds in some hot-boxing after his speeches to take the edge off.