Remembering Mike Gravel With the Kids Who Ran His Campaign Intelligencer 17 hrs ago Matt Stieb
“We’re in our feelings, browsing people’s memorials on Twitter and talking to Mike’s family,” said Henry Williams, of his schedule on Sunday, the day after former Alaska senator Mike Gravelpassed from myeloma at the age of 91. On his t-shirt is a phrase inspired by his unlikely champion: Send Henry Kissinger to the Hague. “This was his line.”
Two years ago, Williams, a Columbia freshman, and his friend David Oks, a high-school senior, convinced Gravel, an anti-war iconoclast last seen in national politics in a brief 2008 presidential run, to lend them his Twitter handle as part of a long-shot campaign to post their way to the Democratic primary by touting progressive ideas and being mean to other candidates online: “Pete Buttigieg is what you get when Patrick Bateman decides to pursue politics instead of banking,” one tweet reads. The pair formerly
The Gravel Institute Punches Up
To counter right-wing organizations with deep pockets and powerful ties, like PragerU, the Gravel Institute builds a progressive grassroots coalition.
Eric Kelly/The Gravel Institute
The co-founders of the Gravel Institute, with the progressive advocacy nonprofitâs âpatron saint and namesake.â From left: Henry Williams, former Sen. Mike Gravel, Henry Magowan, and David Oks.
A few months after former Alaskan Sen. Mike Gravel called off his 2020 presidential bid, Henry Williams, David Oks, and Henry Magowan made a trip out to Monterey, California, to see their candidate. For eight months, the three students had run Gravelâs long-shot progressive campaign from Oksâs childhood bedroom in Westchester County, New York. Now they were going to visit with him to reflect on the campaign.
Eli J. Campbell 1 POSTS 0 COMMENTS Eli J. Campbell is a writer, artist, and activist who has been advocating for a student debt strike since 2016. He has been a guest on Professor Richard Wolff s show Economic Update, and organized a panel discussion at Left Forum 2019 with Dr. Jill Stein, Mike Gravel s 2020 campaign manager David Oks, and professor of economics Daniella Medina.