Opinion: Mike Gravel gets some ink

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For those wondering what makes Mike Gravel tick (and it’s hard to imagine not occasionally musing about that while watching him rant and rave during Democratic presidential debates), a one-stop shopping source has arrived.

The Washington Post’s Sunday magazine devoted its cover story to the one-time senator from Alaska and, if nothing else, it paints a vivid picture of what it’s like to run for the White House on a miniscule budget (and with the help of a devoted, bagel-chomping aide).

The lengthy piece offers biographical details (born in Massachusetts to French-speaking parents from Canada, Gravel didn’t speak English until he was 7) and a quick review of the niche he carved for himself in the early 1970s as one of the most audacious public officials opposing the Vietnam War.

It also spotlights the idea that animates his presidential run: his dream of dramatically rejiggering the U.S. political system through the ‘National Initiative.’ As the article explains it, Gravel ‘envisions American citizens bypassing Congress altogether and passing their own legislation after the creation of a federal initiative process.’

His aim, Gravel says, is nothing less than ‘to change the paradigm of human governance as we know it ...’

And, even as he takes pains to avoid the cost of a parking garage while heading to a speaking engagement, Gravel believes the voters giving generously to others will see the light.

‘Next year at this time, the American people will be with us,’ he tells writer Michael Leahy. ‘It will have happened. And I will remind you that I predicted it.’

-- Don Frederick