Mike Gravel visited a private high school in New Hampshire this past Sunday. In an auditorium packed with teenagers he spoke on the benefits of marijuana over alcohol.
“Alcohol is a heck of a lot worse than marijuana, and I’m sure a lot of you have tripped out on alcohol. It’s a lot safer to do it on marijuana.”
He went on to say that he believes the drug should be available for sale in liquor stores, and that he’s in favor of decriminalizing minor offenses. I have a couple of thoughts.
My first thought is, with his low position in the polls, wouldn’t his time be better spent giving campaign speeches to people that can vote? I’m no campaign manager, but it makes sense to me that if you want to climb in the polls, speaking before a group of voters would be helpful.
The more alarming question is, why is a man that wants to take over leadership of America encouraging a group of high school students to consider anything other than staying in school and studying hard? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that a student asked him a question which lead to this quote. I know that Gravel has spoken on this issue before. He should not have answered the question.
There are a billion topics that he could have spoken on that would have been appropriate: sports, college selection, participating in the political process, getting to know your congressman, the need for math and science majors… I would assert that ANYTHING other than the benefits of marijuana over alcohol would have helped his cause. Or, at least, kept him out of the papers.
Perhaps this is insight into why he’s low in the polls. I have to raise the Gravel flag again, he may be stubborn or determined enough to stay in the race, but Mike Gravel will not be the next president. There is no way that he’ll recover at this point in the political process.
And to the group of students at Phillips Exeter Academy, stay in school, study hard, and America needs more math and science majors.
You’re off base on speaking to high school students. Getting out and speaking in front of people is the goal, and if high schools are what you get then you build from there. He should have found other issues to speak on though. He’s having a hard time competing in this election, negative press could really hurt him.
Generally speaking I agree with you. I don’t claim to be smarter than his campaign manager, but Mike Gravel is competing against candidates that are speaking before thousands. If this was the best speaking gig he could line up for New Hampshire, then he needs to seriously consider dropping. And, if this was just one stop of many in NH, that’s a different story. Either way, he should have something more productive to speak on.
Gravel knows he doesn’t stand a chance, so he does not care what will make him popular. He does know that stuff like this is the only thing he can do to stay in the Newspapers. But is there anything wrong with recommending a safer alternative to teenagers?