Presidential hopeful Mike Gravel isn’t interested in getting votes during his campaign.  Instead, the 77-year-old former Alaska Senator wants his idea to save the country to get some recognition.

The plan is called the National Initiative and involves passing a constitutional amendment that would move the U.S. from a representative democracy to a direct democracy by having all laws voted on in federal ballot initiatives.  Apparently Gravel is thrilled that his candidacy for the Democratic nomination is giving his ideas a wider reach.

Another plus?  He is bigger than J-Lo.  “The day I filed for office I got more attention on the initiative than I had in 15 years,” Gravel told me. “I was getting off a plane and Jennifer Lopez was getting her bags — I didn’t recognize her, someone told me — and no one came up to her, but three people came up and pumped my hand,” Gravel told Time reporter Joel Stein. 

But the Christmas light-bulb sized spotlight might be making Gravel a bit conceited.  During a speech at Harvard, Gravel told a crimson crowd that he had more charisma than front-runner challenger Barack Obama.  That’s like the Beatles saying they’re bigger than Jesus.  You just don’t do it unless you’ve been officially declared insane or you are God.

Moreover, the little attention Gravel procured has made him more paranoid than usual.  He fears he’s such a threat to the military industry complex that he wants to dismantle a sign that says his campaign headquarters in Virginia is on the third floor of a building. 

Poor Grandpa Gravel even thinks teachers are after him: 

The ex-Alaska Senator’s campaign got a blip of national attention over a surreal campaign YouTube video in which he stares at the camera, throws a rock in the water and walks away. “Two young teachers said I’d like to shoot a video. I said, ‘What do they want me to do?’ They said, ‘Throw a rock in the water.’ I said, ‘Great. I’ll give them an hour.’ So I look in the camera for a full minute and all I can think is I look dumb as s–t,” Gravel says.

Regardless, Gravel plans to stick with the campaign through November.  He even said he’d consider running on the Libertarian Party ticket or as a member of another third party.  What an attention whore.

Columbia University’s School of General Studies held their Annual Gala Saturday night and presented Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel with the first annual Isaac Asimov Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Columbia alum and former U.S. senator to Alaska recalled his years at GS as a student of humble means.  Gravel gathered the kids around while he regaled them with tales of working as a cab driver to make ends meet, living off French onion soup, and sharing a graduation cap and gown with a friend.  (I think he left out the part about killing a vagrant man, it being a classy event and all).

Does anyone else get the feeling that Gravel was walking up and down the streets of New York, crazily talking to himself, and just stumbled upon this black-tie affair?   The awards committee just made up an award to get him to stop yelling at the cheese spread.  That’s what any respectable Ivy League university would do for a potential world leader.

Ever wonder why your favorite fringe presidential candidates are being ignored by your nightly news election coverage?  According  to the executive director of the World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement, Joseph Raglione, blame Big Oil corporations.

Raglione said, the only presidential candidates who refused to co-operate with Cap and Trade, are Mike Gravel and Ron Paul. They both believe in taxing the polluters directly.  Mysteriously, both have been cut out of the corporate controlled media spotlight. Dun dun duunnnnnnnnn!

 Senators Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are not listed as having accepted money from the Oil corporations, but if you follow the oil money at the Oil Change International website, you can see a fun little graphic detailing how all the other presidential candidates accepted money.

So that’s why Grandpa Gravel and Popular Paul are being ignored.  The well-paid media is not reporting on these two presidential candidates because they won’t play ball with the oil tycoons.  Ah, well, maybe a sense of decency and an intact moral compass is more valuable than being president of United States.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are busy this week jetting across the nation, smiling for cameras while they throttle each other for delegates and momentum on Super Tuesday.  Meanwhile, the third Democrat, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel is hanging in there and hanging out.

Grumpy Gravel is working the liberal San Francisco and Berkeley areas for the next few days, and while he’s there picking up stray votes he’ll be picking up a few slices.  He and some of his supporters are hanging out at a Berkeley pizza joint to watch the returns Tuesday. 

 Join us as the results from the “Super Tuesday” primaries roll in, don’t sit home yelling at the TV! Come spend a few hours with Mike and the World Can’t Wait–Drive Out the Bush Regime! activists and many other friends. Location: Spud’s Pizza 3290 Adeline, Berkeley, CA (Spud’s is a short walk from Ashby BART / easy street parking / wheelchair accessible)

Gravel has barely registered in any of the early primary states.  Candidates who have already dropped out of the race often get more votes.  But the thinning field may allow him to win some protest votes, maybe even accumulate a few convention delegates. 

Everyone knows the key to winning a presidential primary election is to buy the voters pizza.  At least it worked in high school… 

Spud’s Pizza is the location of Gravel’s Super Tuesday get-together. (photo via spudspizza.com)

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.

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While most Democratic hopefuls have cleared the path to the White House for the three titans, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, the blue party has yet to shake the last couple of stragglers.  Most notably former U.S. Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel is still kicking, but fading fast. 

No one has heard much from Gravel in the last couple weeks.  Though he was the first known candidate of either party to enter the 2008 presidential race 2 1/2 years before Election Day, Gravel has since fallen off the map. 

Democrats are not inviting him to debate events anymore.  The most recent comment from Gravel was about how fellow Democratic competitor Dennis Kucinich is hypocritical for complaining that candidates John Edwards and Hillary Clinton failed to mention his exclusion from MSNBC’s Jan. 15 debate when Kucinich failed to mention Gravel’s exclusion during MSNBC’s Philadelphia debate in October.

While Gravel definitely is not making head-weigh in campaigning–he’s dead last in the Democratic race–at least he is making headlines.  On January 6, he told a group of students to choose marijuana over alcohol during a visit to Phillips Exeter Academy.  Gravel said, “I’m sure a lot of you have tripped out on alcohol. It’s a lot safer to do it on marijuana.” Later he told the students, “If you’ve got a problem with coke, go to a doctor, get a prescription and get it filled at a drug store.”

Gravel has not been shy about his support for the decriminalization of marijuana, but perhaps his most recent controversial words are the reason he has been laying low lately.  Then, again, if Gravel can throw out more entertaining nuggets of insight like:

“Go get yourself a fifth of Scotch or a fifth of gin and chug-a-lug it down and you’ll find you lose your senses a lot faster than you would smoking some marijuana.”

I say he is overdue for an appearance.