From Gravel names his price: $1 million to challenge Obama
Somebody should challenge Obama, there’s no question about it. He is what he is, and it’s not what we want,” former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel said in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I’d be happy to do it, but it takes money. Without enough money to be heard, you come off as somewhat foolish.”
Gravel said he will challenge Obama if there is sufficient financial backing.
“If [supporters] would put up $1 million, I probably would run. And that would at least fund enough activity to get a message out,” Gravel said.
6:26 AM PT: A "serious" primary challenger to Obama can still be "serious", when his main goal is to teach and organize the public, thus creating conditions for a more favorable field of candidates in 2016. Winning in 2012 isn't everything.
I have argued for progressives to storm Republican primaries as candidates, whose main goal is to educate, and thus drive a wedge between the Republican base, and the Republican leadership who are doing such a lousy job representing them. (A 'Republican Full Court Press') See Progressives are Stupid if they don't seize their opportunity to educate their Republican neighbors
I've found out recently about ALEC, but for some strange reason, President Obama doesn't seem interested in educating the country about that abomination, and how it relates to recent events in Wisconsin*. Gravel would hopefully be smart enough to mention ALEC loudly, and often, in debates, interviews, and campaign appearances.
Also, don't forget the organizing potential that a primary run represents. One of the stupidest failures that I've observed in progressive politics was having Kucinich, a man with multiple ties to the Progressive Democrats of America, not push them, along with his candidacy. Kucinich might have boosted their membership 10 fold - who knows? And that might have made a crucial difference in the healthcare debate.
The Republican Full Court Press was inspired by jeffroby's vision of a Democratic Full Court Press, which aimed to push the Democratic Party leftwards.
* Of course, I'm being snarky. It's a reasonable guess that Obama doesn't want to educate Americans about ALEC because he is down with their agenda.
Just think that, if instead of walking in a picket line (with all the security headaches that would entail, and which he didn't do, anyway), Obama had embarked on a speaking tour of Wisconsin, making sure that everybody in that state, and beyond, now knew about ALEC.
Gee whiz, do you think the Dems in WI might have flipped another seat?
So, another way to think about this is: If you want to support state-level Democratic pushbacks against the Republican-embraced ALEC agenda of privatization and union busting, YOU SHOULD HOPE AND PRAY THAT GRAVEL GETS SUFFICIENTLY FUNDED, AND THEN DRAWS ATTENTION TO ALEC DURING THE CAMPAIGN
