Bob Graham, a former U.S. senator and two-term governor of Florida, has died at 87. He gained national attention in the early 2000s as the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee following the Sept. 11 attacks and as an early critic of the Washington establishment’s position on the Iraq War.
His daughter Gwen announced the news in a tweet Tuesday.
“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, dedicated public servant, and even more importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather,” the family said.
— Gwen Graham (@GwenGraham) April 17, 2024
Florida mourns the loss of former Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham today.
He was a devoted public servant who, among other important work, made enormous achievements in conserving Florida's natural resources.
We are grateful for his service to our state and nation. May he…
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 17, 2024
A native of Coral Gables, Graham started his political career early, as student president at Miami Senior High School. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1962, and he won his first election to the Florida legislature four years later.
The Florida Democrat successfully ran for governor in 1978. He was re-elected in 1982. Four years later, he won the first of three terms in the U.S. Senate by ousting incumbent Republican Paula Hawkins.
Graham started his governorship on shaky ground, and he earned the nickname “Gov. Jello” for some early dithering. However, he eventually started the Save Our Everglades program to protect the state’s water supply. Plus, he won re-election to the Senate by wide margins in 1992 and 1998.
While in Washington, Graham cultivated a working relationship with members of both parties.
Charlie Crist, one of Florida’s political fixtures, served as the GOP’s nominee to challenge Graham in 1998, and even Crist expressed immense respect for his political rival.
“He blew me out of the water, and I came to know even more so why during the course of the campaign,” Crist said Tuesday night. “I learned to respect him even more than I already had, and love him for the good, decent man that he was.”
Crist later switched parties and served as a U.S. representative, and he acknowledged Graham’s influence on his career.
“I always felt that when he was governor, that he was trying to govern for the people of Florida — not in any way political or partisan — and I took that to heart and tried to, in some small way, emulate it,” Crist said.
In 2004, Graham even made a run for the White House. His campaign centered on his critique of then-President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. He faulted the Iraq War for distracting the U.S. military from its counterterrorism mission in faraway Afghanistan.
“The quagmire in Iraq is a distraction that the Bush administration, and the Bush administration alone, has created,” Graham said in 2003.
However, Graham suspended his campaign before the first primaries while recovering from heart surgery. He also declined to run for re-election to the Senate, and he was succeeded by Republican Mel Martinez.
Graham developed a reputation for his quirks. He kept a diary not for his private feelings, but for factual information like his golf scores, his food intake, and his time spent watching television. He described the diaries as an administrative tool. “I review them for calls to be made, memos to be dictated, meetings I want to follow up on and things people promise to do,” he said.
His campaigns became known for his “workdays,” including stints as a homemaker, arson investigator, and boxing ring announcer. He began his first “workday” as a member of the Florida Senate’s Education Committee, and then he continued doing them to relate his campaigns to the median voter.
“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” said Graham in 2004, during job as a Christmas gift wrapper.
Take a look at this “workday” as a news anchor —
Graham may have left office in 2005, but he continued to promote civic causes. He spent much of his time at a public policy center named after him at the University of Florida, and he implored pushing the Legislature to require more civics classes in public schools.
In June 2010, Graham sat on an independent commission selected by President Barack Obama in June 2010 to investigate a BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.