Jaicee said:
I remember Mike Gravel's 2008 presidential run. I think a lot of the reason why some like him is because, personality-wise, he doubtless reminds them of Bernie Sanders. Substantively, he was a libertarian candidate. In addition to being among the more staunchly anti-Iraq-War candidates at a time when the war was at its zenith and deeply unpopular, he was also a noted opponent of the Patriot Act, an earlier supporter of same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, as well as, uniquely, a vocal proponent of an idea called the national initiative that was to allow Americans to place policy proposals directly on the ballot for an up-or-down vote of the public like state and local governments can already do. He was also very much for the impeachment of then-president George W. Bush and favored withdrawing from trade agreements like NAFTA. Gravel wasn't the first choice of the progressive movement nonetheless, owing to his broadly pro-austerity views on economic policies. For example, he could also be found running campaign ads railing against the influence of teacher's unions and so on and so forth like this. The progressive movement initially tended to side with a candidate named Dennis Kucinich, who was basically a happier, more positive version of Bernie Sanders. However, the progressive movement was also much weaker at the time than it is today, so it didn't really make any difference. Anyway, after Gravel dropped out of the Democratic race, he quickly joined the Libertarian Party and sought out there nomination instead (which he did not win either) in a development that for me really confirmed his libertarian political orientation. Personally, I was a very practical voter. By the summer of 2007, it was clear to nearly everyone that there were three serious candidates in the Democratic nominating contest: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. We're all familiar with the first two, but Edwards, for those who don't remember him, was the one who was considered to be the viable leftist of the race. He was running as an economic populist pledging to launch programs that would wipe out poverty within a couple decades and end corporate influence in Washington. His bold policy ideas included a full ban on lobbying, making Medicare an option for all Americans, eliminating tuition at community colleges, and introducing national savings accounts. He also proposed to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq (not just the combat troops like the leading candidates) within a period of six months, to "reform" the Patriot Act to be less invasive of Americans' privacy, and, like the other leading Democrats, to support civil unions for same-sex couples. Bold shit, right? That'd be good enough to get you the mantle of pro-corporate neoliberal centrist by today's Democratic Party metrics (e.g. this platform was objectively to the right of the one Kamala Harris is currently running on), but well that was what passed for a left wing campaign back in 2008, and it was good enough for the media to generally view you as out of touch with the middle class. The times have changed! Anyway, he was the candidate I initially supported in 2008 because I was a practical voter who knew that candidates like Dennis Kucinich had no chance. (Indeed, Dennis got like 0.1% of the vote in Iowa and dropped out.) Like many other poorer Edwards voters, I defaulted to the Hillary Clinton campaign after Edwards dropped out relatively early despite Edwards' personal endorsement of Obama. By that point in the race, Obama was the clear establishment preference, endorsed by corporate America writ large, as well as the trade unions, the university students and other intellectuals, and was just generally favored by wealthier people, so people like me just had a bit of a distrust factor going on as a result. I wasn't riveted by what Hillary Clinton stood for, but basically I just liked her tone better and the fact that corporate America and these other forces had abandoned her. It wasn't actually a big deal to me if she won or lost. I also had to agree with some of the feminist movement's views about how you had this more-qualified woman being beaten out by a Senate freshman and it just seemed unfair. I believe she actually wound up being the only Democrat who has run to date to principally win my demographic: rural, working class white women. Well anyway, since there weren't actually that many substantive differences between where Clinton and Obama stood on the issues, the campaign had to largely be fought on other terrain, so predictably it got ugly fast with dubious accusations of both racism and sexism quickly emanating from the respective campaigns rather stupidly. In the end, it wounld up being close, but the predictable candidate won of course, as we know, and was endorsed by Clinton, and won the general election easily (with my vote) because the 2008 crash had just hit. So those are my reflections on Gravel and the 2008 election. |
Thank you for sharing, that's was very informative and interesting to get a personal view on the 2008 elections. I was just 12 years old in '08 so I really didn't know much about politics back then so it's nice to get a personal take on the political climate. And I only had a vague understanding of who Gravel was back in the day. Very much appreciated, I always like to learn new things hahah
