Mike Gravel says he is running for President but what he really wants to do is stand on the sidelines and throw Truth Bombs. OK, that’s way too snide, too snide to actually encompass the bigger truth – but I liked the line so I kept it – to say it more accurately, as Gravel says on his ActBlue Donate page, Sen. Mike Gravel is trying to qualify for the Democratic debates to force the conversation to the left and criticize Wall Street Democrats like Joe Biden to their faces. He is 87, and that, among other drawbacks, make his chances of getting the nomination zero but what he has to say should be heard, in my opinion, and the way to do that is to get him to the debate which is why I’m suggesting you send him a buck.

I understand that Gravel is considered a fringe candidate but only in today’s strange main-stream media feedback loop, wherein war is considered sensible and we can’t afford the Green New Deal to save the planet because we have to give very rich people a tax cut. Gravel is considered a fringe candidate because he is supposed to be a leftist looney. That Gravel is a leftist is true, certainly by today’s standards, after all, he is against our continual war going all the way back to Vietnam – he was instrumental in getting The Pentagon Papers published – and very pro doing something big about Global Climate Change. It is pretty easy to say that he is looney – just look at his campaign ad below – but I think it is more useful to think of him as an eccentric old uncle that always tells the truth even when it is embarrassing. As FiveThirtyEight said: He is a former two-term United States senator, and while his candidacy is not plausible, it is principled. Send him a buck, it’ll be worth it.