View source for Mike Gravel

'''Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel''' (b 1930)

Mike Gravel was born in Springfield, Hampden County, [[Massachusetts]] on [[May 13]], 1930.  He is a former US Senator from [[Alaska]].  He was in the Alaska house of representatives 1962-66 and elected speaker in 1965.  Democrat to the US Senate from Alaska 1969-81.<blockquote>Back in 1971, when President Nixon's Justice Department blocked the New York Times from reporting on a classified study about government deception in the Vietnam War, then-Sen. Gravel put the study on public record by reading aloud about 4,000 pages of what came to be known as "The Pentagon Papers." </blockquote>

He ran again for Senate in 1980 but was defeated.  He married Whitney Unknown in 1983/4.  He is running on the Democratic ticket for the US Presidential Election of 2008.  His Democratic challengers are: [[Hillary Diane Rodham|Hillary Clinton]], [[Christopher Dodd]], [[John Edwards]], [[Dennis Kucinich]], [[Barack Obama]], [[Joseph Biden|Joe Biden]], and [[William Richardson|Bill Richardson]].

===Secondary sources===
*[http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2007/07/05/1 "Who is this Mike Gravel?"] on Planetout.com
*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=g000388 "Maurice Robert Gravel"] on Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

[[Category:Alaska]]
[[Category:Massachusetts]]
[[Category:US Presidential Election 2008]]