First Democrat To Announce For President

By Joe Lauria for the Drudge Report:

NEW YORK -- Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska, will next week become the first Democrat to formally declare his candidacy for president.

Nearly two years before the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential campaign, Gravel will announce his bid to become the Democratic White House hopeful at a news conference Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. He will file his papers today with the Federal Election Commission.

It is believed to be the earliest in a campaign season that anyone has ever filed to be a candidate for president.

“The thought of getting out there early, right now, is really the big tactic for me,” Gravel said in an interview. He vowed: “Once I’m out there and people see the issues I’m raising, it will resonate with people.”

Gravel served in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, during the turbulent last years of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. He is hoping voters respond to his anti-war stance, drawing on the parellels being made between Vientam and Iraq.