Mike Gravel Quits the Democratic Party, Becomes a Libertarian

Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville at 7:03 AM on March 27, 2008.

Gravel: Out. Not of the presidential race that hardly anyone knows he's in, but the Democratic Party.

Long-shot presidential candidate Mike Gravel told supporters Wednesday he is leaving the Democratic Party to join the Libertarian Party.

Gravel, a former Democratic senator from Alaska, said in an e-mail that the Democratic Party "no longer represents my vision for our great country."

"It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism - all of which I find anathema to my views," he said in the e-mail in which he also asked supporters for campaign donations.

Gravel, 77, has been excluded from recent Democratic debates because he failed to meet fundraising or polling thresholds.

I feel his pain. And I'd add a grumblefuck about gobbling from the corporate trough, too.

But even if I belonged to the Democratic Party, I don't think I'd find the Libertarians the answer to my problems.

Tagged as: democratic party, gravel, libertarian

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.