Mike Gravel to Self-Broadcast During the Presidential Debate

Democratic Presidential hopeful Mike Gravel will not be debating tonight with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards. Or at least he won't be in the same building debating with the other Democratic candidates. Gravel has not been allowed to participate in tonight's MSNBC democratic debate, but that is not keeping him out of the debate entirely. MSNBC announced earlier this month that it would not be allowing Gravel to join the other candidates on stage, as he did not meet certain conditions to be considered a viable candidate.

Gravel announced yesterday that he will broadcast his own debate from across the street from the debate site at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Gravel will be at the World Café Live starting at 8:30 pm Eastern and will be joined by supporters and anti-war protestors to protest the "corporate censorship" and GE, which owns NBC.

MSNBC will not let Gravel join the debates based on polling numbers and insufficient fundraising numbers. Gravel explained in a blog on HuffingtonPost.com that NBC's news political director, Chuck Todd, told Gravel staffers that Gravel could not join the debate because he did not raise at least $1 million and he did not capture five percent in the polls. Todd also added that Gravel could not debate because he had not campaigned in New Hampshire and Iowa on at least fourteen separate occasions each.

Gravel spurred his supporters to write emails to NBC to tell them not to exclude Gravel from the debate. The network did not change its mind and posted this answer on the MSNBC website, " As you may already know, no network has given Gravel more of an opportunity to get his message across than NBC and its affiliates. But with the election season beginning in just 73 days, and more candidates (135 alone on the Dem side) trying to get into our debates, we believed it was necessary to have some minimum standards. Leaders and activists from both parties believe our requirements are very fair. Unfortunately, Gravel did not meet those requirements."

Gravel argued in his post on the HuffingtonPost that he did indeed meet the arbitrary and sudden requirements of MSNBC. Gravel claims that he has visited both Iowa and New Hampshire at least fourteen times, and that he is tied with other candidates, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich in a recent CNN poll. Gravel furthermore takes pride in the fact that he does not take special interest money like Clinton, which has put her in the top fundraising spot of having brought in over $30 million. Gravel also added that NBC has not excluded him from debates in the past. Gravel attributes the latest exclusion to his questioning of issues on Iran and a possible war with that country. Gravel claims that GE does not want the debate to address a possible war with Iran, as GE, a large corporation with military supply ties, stands to make profits on the possible war.

Gravel plans on answering the same questions as the official debaters on a live webcast available through his campaign website, starting at 9pm Eastern.

Sources: Mike Gravel '08, MSNBC, Huffington Post