Shut out, he gets his licks in

Joe Schoenmann, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, Nov. 16, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.

Democratic candidate Mike Gravel gave 20 people in a small room at Paris Las Vegas a clinic in rebuttal by TiVo on Thursday night.

The former two-term U.S. senator from Alaska watched the debate on a large screen in the Bordeaux Room in the resort's convention area. He paused the live telecast when he wanted to make a comment, such as when New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said: "The American people know where I've stood for 35 years ... fighting for universal health care, women and children."

"Freeze that," Gravel said. "Analyze what she just said." The candidate was sitting in a chair left of the screen wearing a microphone and earpiece headset. "She's saying she's qualified. What's she done? So she slept in the White House for eight years. What's she done in the Senate? Can anyone who hears my voice find one issue she's shown leadership on? All that is pablum."

Then one of his people with controls to a TiVo, which lets users record, play and pause a TV show at will, started the CNN debate again.

CNN, which staged this fifth of six official debates, excluded Gravel after declaring that only candidates who'd raised more than $1 million could appear. That threshold eliminated just one candidate, the one who happened to be a nettle in the Democratic shoe.

The debate continued.

"What the American people are looking for is straight answers to tough questions," Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said. "That is not what we've seen on illegal immigrants. The same is true on Social Security. Right now, we need a different kind of politics."

"Freeze that," Gravel ordered. "He said nothing, he said nothing. All he did was define a problem. He didn't have a solution, but said, 'We'll go do it.' What does that do? That and a buck and a half will get you a coffee at Starbucks."

Gravel streamed the event on the Web, just as he did last month after not being invited to a debate in Philadelphia. "That experience cost us $20,000, which was two-thirds of the money we had in the bank," Gravel said.

The debate continued.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said, "We should demand more of our teachers."

Freeze that. "How can you have a budget making education the No. 1 priority when these people voted to go to war, where our treasury is being spent? They're talking out of both sides of their mouths."

Gravel applauded Biden, however, for observing that none of his fellow candidates was answering the questions. And the band of loyalists in the room occasionally applauded their candidate.