Mike Gravel Answers 10 Questions

Mike Gravel was next to answer on 10Questions.com. For those of you unfamiliar with this debate format, you can see my previous coverage here, with a rundown of the questions, my answers, and the candidates' answers to date.

Here are Mike Gravel's answers. After the jump, I'll run through his answers, and let you know how I think he did.

So, why is it you never see any coverage of Mike Gravel's candidacy? He seems like a...

1. Net Neutrality - Oh. That's why. Gravel sees Kucinich's Net Neutrality, and raises him one media conglomerate bust-up. He says only 5 companies control information in this country. I wonder who he means?

2. Is America an Unofficial Theocracy? - Um, no. Actually, I think the questioner was hinting at a de facto theocracy, where only lip service is paid to the non-believer, rather than an explicit enunciation of seperation of church and state. That's why his other question was better.

3. Medical Marijuana - Got bud? He kinda went broad here, urging an end to the "War on Drugs" and equating marijuana use with alcohol, but never specifically addressing medical marijuana. That's cool, nobody ever asks what to do about "medical aloe vera." His position, while sensible and supported by fact, is about 20 years too early for any politician to say out loud.

4. Warrantless Wiretapping - Again, he goes for the broader issue of the government using fear to control us, promising security in exchange for liberty, and delivering neither. So I guess he's against it.

5. Fair Elections - Mike is for public campaign financing, correctly observing the corrupting influence of money on the process, and the explicit nature of the influence of campaign cash. I wish one of these guys had provided a cost analysis of public vs. private financing of elections.

6. Why Won't You Abolish Corporate Personhood? - Again, he will so abolish corporate personhood, but he also rightly calls you out for not giving politicians what they need to walk away from that type of influence.

7. Transparency - Mike seems to advocate legislation through national referenda. I guess we can then set our own transparency level?

8. Is Our Voting System Broken? - Hey! he backed up my point about election fraud being nothing new! And, again with the referenda. I get where he's coming from, but I gotta say, Winston Churchill had a point when he said, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

9. Shrink Government - Referenda again.

10. Two Party System - Mike Gravel loves the two-party system, and thinks, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just kidding. Referenda.

I can't fault the guy for believing strongly in the referendum as a tool for democracy, so I'd have to say he gets high marks for completeness. A referendum is a shortcut to progress in Gravel's eyes, but he fails to note that that kind of responsiveness in legislation can cut both ways. What laws do you think the Popular Will would have passed on 9/12/2001?