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Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel was an American politician and writer who represented Alaska in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1981 as a member of the Democratic Party. He ran for president twice: in 2008 and 2020. He was the fourth U.S. Senator in Alaska's history.
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business · American politician (1930–2021) · politician · stockbroker · businessperson · writer · also Mike Gravel, Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel, Maurice Gravel, Senator Gravel, Gravel
Born 13 May 1930 · Died 26 June 2021 · Q352422
88 published statements · 0 followers
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If we were to chase them out, aren't we playing to the nativists, the crazies, who are opposed to anybody coming in since they got here? And the media plays into this. The Congress plays into this. Just open our doors. When the jobs are there to be filled, they'll come in. If the jobs aren't there, they'll go home. We can deal with all these other problems in trade.
We're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're creating laws. We're trying to deal with this. Deal with the obvious: We do not seem as a nation to be able to solve this problem the way we've been approaching it.
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“Hasn't it become obvious in this discussion that there has to be a reason why over the last 15 years we haven't solved this problem as a nation? Stop and think. Our unemployment level is about 4.5, and that's about as low as you can get it. So, where is the problem? We have to have people fill these jobs. They come in and fill these jobs. We call them illegal. Are they illegal? They're filling jobs that need to be done.”
“If we were to chase them out, aren't we playing to the nativists, the crazies, who are opposed to anybody coming in since they got here? And the media plays into this. The Congress plays into this. Just open our doors. When the jobs are there to be filled, they'll come in. If the jobs aren't there, they'll go home. We can deal with all these other problems in trade.”
“We're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're creating laws. We're trying to deal with this. Deal with the obvious: We do not seem as a nation to be able to solve this problem the way we've been approaching it.”
“The Democratic Party used to stand for the ordinary working man. But the Clintons and the DLC sold out the Democratic Party to Wall Street. Look at where all the money is being raised right now, for Hillary, Obama and Edwards. It's the hedge funds, it's Wall Street bankers, it's the people who brought you what you have today. Please wake up. Just look at the New York Times of the 17th of July that analyzes where the money's coming from.”
“George Bush's oil war was a mistake. We need to stop killing Americans and Iraqis. Been around since the beginning of time. It's not a war. It should be a police action based on global intelligence. It's the most serious problem facing humanity today.”
“I've advocated, people, follow the money if you want to find out what's going to happen after any one of these individuals are elected. Follow the money, because it's politics as usual is what you're seeing.”
“Because when you have a foreign policy that's beggar thy neighbor, we all become beggars. And so when they talk about the currency of China, what about the — what manipulations we do? What about the American companies that dump things abroad?”
“Education? Yes. Health care? Yes. But understand that the health care that we’re talking about, by and large, is going backwards, going backwards. We’re subsidizing the insurance companies. And all the plans that I’ve heard of, except Dennis’s, is a continued subsidization of the insurance companies.”
“We don't need a minimum wage; we need a living wage. We don't have that in this country because of what they passed.”
“I'm first-generation American. My parents came here like many of your parents, and I spoke French before I could speak English as a child. And my parents carved out -- my dad was very humble, didn't have a third-grade education, but he was able to work and prosper in this country, and so I honor anybody that comes to this country as an immigrant, because we're all immigrants. There's been nobody else but the Indians in this great land.”
“No, outsourcing is not the problem. What is the problem is our trade agreements that we have that benefit the management and, of course, the shareholders, and have neglected on either side of the issue, whether it’s in Mexico or in other countries or the United States. That’s the problem that must be addressed.”
“Is it a surprise to anybody in this room that if you don’t have any money, you don’t get any justice? (Laughter.) Is that a surprise to you all? (Applause.) My gracious, the only way you’re going to get justice is to turn around and empower yourselves to become lawmakers so you can change the system, and there’s no thought of really changing the system today. It’s politics as usual. (Applause.)”
“No, we are failing, and it’s our leadership that’s failing, and the American people, if they had the power to make laws in partnership with representative government, they could correct this.”
“The country is run by corporate America, particularly the military-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, and we do nothing about it. Look at this election and it’s all money. Follow the money, and you’ll find out what you’re going to get in the way of leadership”
“The only way you’re going to pay for it is not by saddling business. All you do by forcing business to pay for health care or passing a law telling people they have to go buy insurance, which is a subsidy for the insurance companies, all these plans are going backwards.”
“Stop and think. When he’s talking about the money we’re squandering. 21 million Americans could have a four-year college scholarship for the money we’ve squandered in Iraq. 7.6 million teachers could have been hired last year if we weren’t squandering this money. Now, how do you think we got into this problem? The people on this stage, like the rest of us, are all guilty and very guilty, and we should recognize that, because there is linkage!”
“The scourge of our present society, particularly in the African-American community, is the war on drugs. I’ll repeat again as a challenge to my colleagues on this stage, that if they really want to do something about the inner cities, if they really want to do something about what’s happening to the health of the African-American community, it’s time to end this war.”
“Totally. I think it's abominable that they go out and do these raids, separate families. (Applause.) Stop and think -- all these people want to do is earn enough money to feed their families, whether they send them money back home or they bring their families here. If we made it easier for them to go back and forth on the borders, you wouldn't have this problem.”
“Well, the first thing that you would do is to realize that terrorism is not a war. Our war on terrorism makes no sense. We've had -- (interrupted by applause) -- we've had terrorism since the beginning of civilization, and we'll have it to the end of civilization.”
“s campaign said it was still 10,000 contributions short of the 65,000-donor threshold and that it was”
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“Something is monitoring the planet, and they are monitoring it very cautiously, because we are a very warlike planet,”
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“s views on the Holocaust, stating,”
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“Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?”
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“the legislation denies Alaska its rights as a state, and denies the U.S. crucial strategic resources,”
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Died 2021-06-26.
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Campaign: 2020 presidential election.
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With Gravel endorsing both Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard for president
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Meeting the qualification mark for that month's debate
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The Democratic Party announced the 20 major candidates who qualified for the first debate later that month
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Gravel filed to officially run for office
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Gravel announced that he was considering running in the 2020 Democratic primaries
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“The goal will not be to win, but to bring a critique of American imperialism to the Democratic debate stage.”
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Gravel said in relation to the September 11 attacks: "We killed 58,000 American servicemen in the Vietnam War and all they did was die in vain
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“We killed 58,000 American servicemen in the Vietnam War and all they did was die in vain. What”
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By the invitation of Hamed Ghashghavi, the secretary for international affairs of the 3rd International Conference on Hollywoodism in Tehran, Iran, Gravel attended that event as an Iranian government-organized anti-Holly
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And that "she's going to surprise a lot of people"
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Election lost: 2008 presidential election.
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Gravel announced that he would leave the Democrats and join the Libertarian Party, saying: "My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem no
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Gravel continued to remain in the Democratic race but additionally endorsed a Green Party candidate for president, Jesse Johnson, saying he wanted to help Johnson prevail against Green Party rivals Cynthia McKinney and R
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Campaign: 2008 presidential election.
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“My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy.”
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That it was the only time Gottstein had ever asked him for a favor, and the rupture resulted in their never speaking to each other again
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The anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition
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Suggested a bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties
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Declared that he had "zero net worth"
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Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D
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Gravel gave a speech on direct democracy at a conference hosted by the American Free Press
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Gravel became director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, where he admired institute co-founder Gregory Fossedal's work on direct democracy in Switzerland
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Gravel reentered politics
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Gravel worked in partnership with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets to buy losses that financially troubled Alaska Native Corporations could not take as tax deductions and sell them to large national companies looking for ta
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Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, who had been an administrative assistant for U
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A new lands bill came up for consideration, that was less favorable to Alaskan interests and more liked by environmentalists; it set aside 127,000,000 acres (510,000 km2) of Alaska's 375,000,000 acres (1,520,000 km2) for
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In 1980, Gravel was challenged for the Democratic Party's nomination by State Representative Clark Gruening, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier
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Career landmark: United States senator (1979–1981).
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Gravel authored and secured the passage into federal law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation, that became Subchapter U of the Tax Code under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954
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During the Congressional debate over whether to allow a controversial sale of U
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Gravel blocked passage, via procedural delays such as walking out of House–Senate conference committee meetings, of a complex bill which represented a compromise on land use policy
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Career landmark: United States senator (1977–1979).
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Gravel helped lead an effort to have the U
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Attended by Inuit representatives from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland
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Gravel introduced an amendment to cut the number of troops overseas by 200,000, but it was defeated on a voice vote
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Career landmark: United States senator (1975–1977).
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But was defeated in his bid for a third term in the primary election in 1980
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Several years earlier, Alaska politicians had speculated that Gravel would have a hard time getting both renominated and elected when his first term expired, given that he was originally elected without a base party orga
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In what the New York Times termed a "nip-and-tuck roll-call", the Gravel amendment was approved, as a 49–49 tie was broken in favor by Vice President Spiro Agnew
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Career landmark: United States senator (1973–1975).
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Gravel actively campaigned for the office of Vice President of the United States during the 1972 presidential election, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the 1972 Democratic National Convention began, that
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For Vice President of the United States, and then played a crucial role in obtaining Congressional approval for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973
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This four-volume, relatively expensive set became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies from Cornell University and the Annenberg Center for Communication have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon P
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The Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension
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The New York Times began printing large portions of the Pentagon Papers
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And financing a broadcast campaign by the antiwar group War No More with a personal loan
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Career landmark: United States senator (1971–1973).
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Became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and by 1973 he was chair of its Subcommittee on Water Resources, then later its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution
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Gravel voted against the Nixon administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile system, the Safeguard Program, having previously vacillated over the issue, suggesting that he might be willing to support it in exchange fo
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Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents; in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums
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Gravel co-sponsored legislation to establish a guaranteed minimum income, entitling poor families to up to $6,300 a year (the equivalent of $42,000 in 2019 after adjustment for inflation)
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Career landmark: United States senator (1969–1971).
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Gravel was the only Democratic Senator outside of the South to vote for Nixon's Supreme Court nominee Clement Haynsworth
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Gravel won the general election with 45 percent of the vote to Rasmuson's 37 percent and Gruening's 18 percent
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Gravel had never established a firm party base
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In 1968, Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, for his p
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Instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat in the U
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Initially assigned the 10th and then 8th districts
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Sponsored by the Jaycees, often dressing for events as Paul Revere
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And his class voted him "most charming personality"
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Born 1930-05-13.
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In Springfield, Massachusetts, one of five children of French-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse and Marie (née Bourassa) Gravel
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Education? Yes. Health care? Yes. But understand that the health care that we’re talking about, by and large, is going backwards, going backwards. We’re subsidizing the insurance companies. And all the plans that I’ve heard of, except Dennis’s, is a continued subsidization of the insurance companies.
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