Gore's Got the Gravitas, but the Real Grizzly Adams Is Mike Gravel

Freezerbox founder Alex Zaitchik posted a dispatch entitled, "The 'Run, Al' Chorus," in which, first, he apologized for not voting for Gore in 2002. Then he urged him to grow back his beard as a way of leveraging his identification with the environment.

But now we have a guy running for president who not only looks like a rugged individualist, but is one: Mike Gravel, the former Senator (1969 - 81) from Alaska,* announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination on April 17. You remember him. He's the guy who personally hammered the nail in the coffin of the draft with a filibuster and who arranged the Pentagon Papers' publication, even though it was illegal.

And his new ideas are as big as the country from which he hails. They run the gamut from left to libertarian, from big spender to spendthrift. Organizing them under the umbrella name the National Initiative, they include:

• Repealing the Electoral College
• Enacting a universal health care
• Rebuilding transportation and the infrastructure
• Repealing the income tax and replacing it with a consumer tax (He actually advocates shuttering the IRS!)
• Organizing an intelligence and police organization, similar to NATO, to fight terrorism

 And, of course. . .

• Withdrawing from Iraq.

 Look close -- the gravel in that miner's pan might really be gold.

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