Fringe Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel is running on a campaign that focuses not on winning the nomination but injecting his ideas ?— anti-war, pro-civil rights, and political reform ?— into the mainstream. Although the 89-year-old failed to qualify for the first Democratic debate stage, his Twitter account, which is run by manager David Oks and chief of staff Henry Williams, both just 18, recently attacked Joe Biden’s “terrifying emptiness” in a call for donations to get Gravel to the second debate stage.
“This campaign is just heating up and with the looming threat of war with Iran, a new cold war with China, and the terrifying emptiness that is Joe Biden’s candidacy, we need Mike on stage more than ever to speak truth to power.”
“Your dollar gets him there,” the post concluded.
In another recent post, Gravel attacked the Pentagon for allegedly lying about Iran’s role in the Gulf of Oman tanker attack, as The Inquisitr previously reported.
Gravel ?— who ran for president in 2008 ?— is skeptical of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Although he doesn’t believe the DNC is trying to sabotage his campaign, The Washington Examiner reports that Gravel believes it “cheated” Senator Bernie Sanders out of the 2008 Democratic nomination.
“I’m very suspicious of the DNC since it’s controlled by Perez and essentially the leftover Clinton crowd,” he said. “So, we’ll see how they conduct themselves.”
“They cheated [Sanders] out of the nomination. And we’ll see how they try to sabotage him under the present circumstances.”
“At the very least, American politics loves a flame-thrower. Or in this case, a rock-dropper.” https://t.co/Y1ZPuXuMXD
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) June 10, 2019
Gravel was one of Alaska’s senators from 1969 to 1981. During his stint, he became notorious for publicizing portions of the Pentagon Papers. After his failed 2008 presidential run and another unsuccessful run for the Libertarian Party nomination, he has kept a fairly low profile until Oks and Williams contacted him via email. After some convincing, Gravel agreed to let them run his campaign.
A quick scan of Gravel’s Twitter feed reveals his low opinion of former vice president and presidential hopeful Biden, whom he has called a “bum,” “good time pr**k,” and “arrogant ba**ard creep.” In fact, his campaign has made dunking on Biden somewhat of a staple.
If Gravel has a chance of making the second debate stage remains to be seen, but Vogue reports that his appeal is to the younger Gen Z, who are now of age to vote, suggesting that his appeal is something that no other candidate has managed to tap into. Gravel is also reportedly a 9/11 truther and believes that extraterrestrials are monitoring Earth.