I give Ron Paul a bit of a pounding on here now and again (which reminds me, I have another one coming soon…), and there are two simple reasons for this. The first is that while I like his foreign policies and his general attitude of limited government, his domestic policies downright scare me and seeing him get so much support frequently irks me.

The second is far more direct. I am absolutely green with envy at the swell of support he is getting. So I ask you all, where’s the love for Mike Gravel?

Support for the Democrats is dwindling thanks to a general trend of inaction and/or cowardice in the face of the GOP machine. With the candidates still acting as though Karl Rove is still lurking in the shadows and that a majority in Congress still isn’t enough (“we can’t override a veto!”), it’s more than a little disheartening to see so little change. When I found that a website called The Smirking Chimp hosted an article abandoning the party, that told me we have a problem.

The solution? Mike Gravel.

Annoyed that Democrats are all wimpy in opposing the war? Mike Gravel wants out now and tore into Hillary over her vote over it. The man wrote an article called “Why Hillary Scares Me” for chrissakes.

Hillary, as an active supporter of the war, you are one of many Americans who are guilty. And now all Americans are left responsible, regardless of whether we supported or opposed he war. When we pull out, our hands will drip with the blood of the tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead. The Iraqi government didn’t start this, we did.

Bam!

I point at OnTheIssues frequently to give people a perspective on candidates, and the page on Gravel is no less illuminating. No, he doesn’t have a lot of votes to go off of, but he has plenty of statements and they paint a clear picture of the guy. You want a tough Democrat that won’t hem and haw? Mike Gravel’s your man.

Pow!

Name an issue the Democrats have failed us on and Gravel isn’t fooling around. Iraq? Let’s get out. Iran? Hell no. Universal health care? Let’s get it. Drug laws? Get rid of ’em. Gay marriage? Of course. Stem cell research? Let’s get it going. Abortion? Rare but legal.

I can already hear a criticism. Oh sure Hanlon, you say, he sounds great and all but what has he done? Why should we care what he’s jabbering about if he doesn’t produce results?

Good call, reader, but let me ask you a question. Are you glad there’s no draft today? If so, you have Mike Gravel to thank. I don’t mean that he helped end the draft or that he co-sponsored a bill that led to the end of the draft, no. Gravel went on a five-month filibuster, by himself, to halt the reinstatement of the draft. You want to talk about political accomplishments that we can appreciate today, it’s hard to top that.

I’m going to repeat that. In 1971, Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel embarked on a five-month long filibuster by himself to stop the draft being reinstated. When Chuck Rangel proposed bringing back the draft, it was considered lunacy. Why? Because Mike Gravel killed it 26 years ago and relegated it to the history books.

I often worry that the Democratic party is going to lose its “netroots” support because so many are focused on the Big Three and getting angry at their rightward drift (or possibly their forgetting about their spines), totally forgetting that we’ve got a wolverine hidden in the back.

No, he’s not seeing much support now and is in that area where his poll numbers are lower than the margin of error, but that’s just my point. Pick an issue and Gravel is bang-on. We’ve seen that Ron Paul could go from an unknown to a top tier, so why couldn’t Gravel follow suit? Get your asses over to his campaign page and show him some love.