Florida, Tampa, Florida (AP) — Bob Graham, a former U.S. senator and two-term governor of Florida, passed away. Graham rose to national prominence as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee following the terrorist attacks of 2001 and as one of the first people to publicly criticize the Iraq War. He was eighty-seven.
Graham’s daughter Gwen Graham posted a statement on X on Tuesday announcing the family’s loss.
“The family expressed great sadness over the loss of a visionary leader, devoted public servant, and, above all, a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.”
Graham, who served three terms in the Senate, made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasizing his opposition to the Iraq invasion.
However, he had heart surgery in January 2003, which put a stop to his bid; he never managed to gain enough momentum with voters to make up for it, and he withdrew that October. In 2004, he decided not to run for reelection, and Republican Mel Martinez took his place.
Graham was a peculiar man. He perfected the political ploy of “workdays,” in which he spent a day doing anything from an FBI agent to a horse stall mucker. He also kept a meticulous diary, recording nearly everyone he spoke to, everything he ate, TV shows he watched, and even his golf scores.
Graham reported that he was hesitant to write down his sentiments or emotions in the notebooks because they were merely a working tool for him.
“I go through them to see what needs to be followed up on—memos to be dictated, calls to be placed, and commitments made by individuals,” he explained.
Graham was one of the first to criticize the war in Iraq, arguing that it took America’s attention away from the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. In addition, he chastised President George W. Bush for not having an occupation strategy in place in Iraq following the ouster of Saddam Hussein by American forces in 2003.
Graham said that Bush falsely claimed that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were never discovered, posed a threat, leading the US into the conflict. He contended that Bush’s distorting of intelligence data was more significant than the sexual misconduct charges against President Bill Clinton that prompted the House to impeach him in the late 1990s. It prompted him to begin his brief, unsuccessful run for president.
Graham stated in 2003 that “the Bush administration, and the Bush administration alone, is to blame for the diversion that is the Iraqi quagmire.”
Graham collaborated effectively with colleagues from both parties during his eighteen years in Washington, especially with Florida Republican Connie Mack during their twelve years in the Senate.
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Few were better as politicians. As a wealthy attorney with a Harvard education, he was hardly taken into consideration by Florida voters.
Graham’s five-decade political career began in 1966 when he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives.
In 1970, he was elected to the state Senate, and in 1978, he was elected governor. In 1982, he was elected again. Four years later, he defeated Republican incumbent Paula Hawkins to win the first of his three terms in the U.S. Senate.
Graham maintained his high level of popularity with Floridians, winning reelection with sizable margins in 1992 and 1998 after taking 63 out of 67 counties. He was victorious in that subsequent election over Charlie Crist, who went on to become a Republican governor from 2007 to 2011.
Throughout the campaign, I learned even more reasons why he outperformed me,” Crist remarked on Tuesday night. “I came to love and respect him for the kind, decent man he was, even more than I already did.”
Since then, Crist has changed parties and most recently held the position of U.S. representative. He acknowledged that Graham had an impact on him.
“I took that to heart and tried to, in some small way, emulate it,” Crist said. “I always felt that when he was governor, he was trying to govern for the people of Florida — not in any way political or partisan.”
Graham was praised for his “distinguished public service” by House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who referred to him as “a patriotic American.” He “bravely opposed entry into the war in Iraq,” she said, highlighting his work on the 9/11 investigation.
He served in the Senate with great courage and dignity, carrying with him his love for his family and his home state of Florida “She said in a statement on Tuesday.
Graham never lost sight of the state and the Tallahassee leadership, not even while he was in Washington.
Graham perceived the 2001 elimination of the Board of Regents by Governor Jeb Bush and the Republican-controlled Legislature as an attempt to politicize the state university system. The following year, he spearheaded a successful petition drive for a state constitutional amendment that established the Board of Governors to replace the regents.
On November 9, 1936, Daniel Robert Graham was born in Coral Gables, where his father, Ernest “Cap” Graham, had relocated from South Dakota to start a sizable dairy business. As a teenager, young Bob built fences, scooped manure, and milked cows. Only a year after Bob Graham graduated from Harvard Law, in 1963, his half-brother Phillip Graham took his own life as the publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek.
Graham attended the University of Florida, where he graduated in 1959, and served as the student body president at Miami Senior High School.
He was chosen to serve in the Florida Legislature in 1966, primarily concentrating on matters pertaining to health care and education.
As Florida’s chief executive, Graham had a rough beginning, earning the nickname “Gov. Jello” for his initial lack of decisiveness. He shook that label through his handling of several serious crises.
Together with founding the Save the Manatee Club with entertainer Jimmy Buffett, he signed multiple death warrants while serving as governor and spearheaded the establishment of multiple environmental initiatives.
Graham spearheaded the creation of the Save Our Everglades program to save the state’s water supply, wetlands, and endangered species. He also pushed through a bond program to purchase beaches and barrier islands that were in danger of development.
In addition, Graham was well-known for his 408 “workdays,” which included employment as a flight attendant, housewife, boxing ring announcer, and arson investigator. They developed from his time spent teaching while serving on the Florida Senate’s Education Committee, and later became a campaign tactic that made him more relatable to regular voters.
When Graham finished his last job as a Christmas gift wrapper in 2004, he said, “This has been a very important part of my development as a public official, my learning at a very human level what the people of Florida expect, what they want, what their aspirations are and then trying to interpret that and make it policy that will improve their lives.”
Following his retirement from public office in 2005, Graham dedicated most of his time to advocating for the Legislature to mandate more civics education in the state’s public schools and running an after-hours public policy center at the University of Florida.
President Barack Obama appointed five people, including Graham, to an independent commission in June 2010 to look into a massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that endangered beaches and marine life in several states in the Southeast.
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