Bob Graham Totally Explained

Everything about Bob Graham totally explained

ť This article is about the American politician. For Bob Graham the English Lakeland fell-runner and his long-standing Lakeland 24-hour record see Bob Graham Round. For Bob Graham the Australian author/illustrator, see Bob Graham (author / illustrator).

Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham (born November 9, 1936) is an American politician. He was a United States Senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005 and the governor of that state from 1979 to 1987. Following a failed bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2004 presidential race, Graham was considered a possible running mate for John Kerry.
Graham dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination on October 6, 2003 and announced his retirement from the Senate on November 3, 2003.
Graham is now concentrating his efforts on the newly established Bob Graham Center for Public Service (External Link

) at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida.

Personal background

He was born in Miami-Dade County, Florida. He married Adele Khoury Graham, of Miami Shores, in 1959. They have four daughters: Gwen Graham Logan, Cissy Graham McCullough, Suzanne Graham Gibson and Kendall Graham Elias. The Grahams also have 12 grandchildren as of 2007.
Graham is the son of Ernest "Cap" Graham, a Florida state senator, mining engineer and dairy/cattleman, and Hilda Simmons Graham, a schoolteacher. He is the youngest of four children. His siblings are the late Philip Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post; William Graham of Miami Lakes, Florida; and the late Mary Crow.
Bob Graham attended Miami Senior High School from 1951 to 1955, he was Student Body President his senior year. He was also president of Key Club, the Kiwanis service organization. While at Miami High Graham was the recipient of the Sigma Chi Award, the school's highest honor. He received a bachelor's degree in 1959 in political science from the University of Florida, where he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. While at UF he was inducted into the University of Florida Hall of Fame (the most prestigious honor at UF) and was inducted into Florida Blue Key. He went on to receive an LLB from Harvard Law School in 1962. His eldest brother, Philip (1915-1963), was also a Harvard Law alum.

Political career

Graham is a Democrat who never lost an election prior to his bid for the 2004 Presidential nomination. He was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966 and reelected in 1968. He was elected to the Florida State Senate in 1970 and was reelected in 1974.

Workdays

Bob Graham's campaign trademark was to work a full, eight-hour day at various jobs which represented Florida's constituents. He began his Workdays in 1974, teaching a semester of civics at Miami Carol City Senior High School in Miami while serving in the Florida Senate. At that time, Bob Graham was on the Education Committee. After a speech, M. Sue Riley, an English teacher at Carol City, approached Bob Graham and said, "The only problem with members of the Education Committee is nobody has any experience in education." Bob Graham was taken aback at that assertion and asked, "Well, what can I do about that?" A few months later, Ms. Riley contacted Senator Graham with a proposal to teach the next semester of civics. Following that teaching experience, he performed 99 additional workdays just in time for his 1986 successful campaign for U.S. Senate. Since then, he's completed 386 workdays, more than a year's worth of days spent laboring side-by-side with his constituents. Graham has continued doing workdays throughout his tenure as governor and in the United States Senate. His jobs have included service as a police officer, busboy, railroad engineer, construction worker, fisherman, garbageman, factory worker, and teacher. On No. 365, he checked in customers, handled baggage and helped serve passengers on US Airways.

Governor of Florida

Bob Graham was elected Governor of Florida in 1978 after a seven-way Democratic primary race in which he initially placed second to Robert L. Shevin. His supporters at the time dubbed themselves "Graham crackers." With this victory, he realized his father's dream: Cap Graham had run unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to be Governor of Florida back in 1944. Graham was re-elected in 1982 with 65% of the vote, defeating Republican nominee Skip Bafalis. As governor he was probably best known for his failure to stop the Mariel Boatlift, pro-environmental policy, and overseeing resumption of the death penalty (16 people were electrocuted while he was governor.) Previously Graham had voted for capital punishment as a legislator.

Lieutenant Governor: Wayne Mixson
Secretary of State: George Firestone
Attorney General: Alan Becker (1978–82), Jim Smith (1982–86)
Treasurer: Bill Gunter
Comptroller: Gerald Lewis
Agriculture Commissioner: Doyle Conner
Education Commissioner: Ralph Turlington
Chief of Staff: Charles B. Reed

U.S. Senator

Graham was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, defeating incumbent Sen. Paula Hawkins 55 to 45 percent. He was re-elected in 1992 (over Bill Grant, 66-34) and 1998 (over Charlie Crist, 63-37).
   Bob Graham was a member of the New Democrat Coalition.
   He has a quirky habit of keeping a detailed log of his daily activities on color-coded notebooks, which some say may have cost him a spot on past vice-presidential tickets. He keeps all of these notes in a file cabinet arranged by month and year. A great champion for his home state, Graham always kept Florida orange juice on hand in his Senate office and was rarely seen without his trademark Florida tie.
   Early in 2003, Graham underwent heart surgery and received an artificial replacement heart valve made from the tissue from the heart of a Holstein cow.
   He cosponsored a bill to create a Director of National Intelligence.
   As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Graham opposed the War in Iraq for fear it would divert U.S. attention from the fight in Afghanistan. After carefully reviewing information and meeting with military leaders in February 2002, he decided the war would be a "distraction" that would end poorly. He continues to oppose the Iraq War today.(External Link

)

Presidential candidate

Graham announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2004 election on the Democratic ticket on February 27, 2003. However, on October 7, 2003, he announced (with polls showing him in last place among a field of ten candidates) he was ending his presidential campaign, saying he started his campaign too late and had trouble raising money. In November, he announced that he wouldn't seek another term in the Senate.
After John Kerry became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in March 2004, there was some discussion in the media that Graham might be on the short list of Kerry's choices for vice president, presumably at least in part because having Graham on the ticket could help Kerry win Florida in the presidential election. Shortly before Kerry chose Sen. John Edwards, the Kerry campaign printed "Kerry-Graham" posters and bumper stickers in case Edwards declined to be Kerry's running mate. Many wonder whether Graham's selection as a vice presidential candidate would have won Florida, and thus, the presidency, for the Democrats.

After politics

After teaching at Harvard University for the 2005–2006 academic year, Graham is now focused on founding two centers to train future political leaders, one at the University of Florida — where he earned his bachelor's degree in political science in 1959 — and one in his hometown at University of Miami.
The UF Center, known as the Bob Graham Center for Public Service (External Link

), is housed in the university's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences(External Link

) and provides students with opportunities to train for future leadership positions, meet current policymakers and take courses in critical thinking, language learning and studies of world cultures. On February 9, 2008, Jim and Alexis Pugh Hall was dedicated on the UF campus — funded by longtime friend of Graham, Jim Pugh, and his wife Alexis — and serves as home to the center, as well as the university's oral history and African and Asian languages programs.
Graham is also currently writing a book on civic education and how a citizen can participate in our democracy in effective ways.

Business interests

The Graham dairy farm was redeveloped into Miami Lakes, a residential and commercial community, in 1963 under the leadership of Bob Graham's brother, William. To this day, Bob Graham still owns a significant share of the Graham Companies, which is estimated to be worth around $10 million. To avoid a potential conflict of interest, his various investments, including his share in the Miami Lakes development, are managed by a proxy and reported to Graham at the end of each year. Graham's total net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $7.35 million and $31.7 million.

Salutes

On November 18, 2005, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was rebuilt during Graham's time as Governor (supposedly with great input from him), was renamed the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge by the Florida Legislature.
On May 6, 2006 at the Spring commencement for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the University of Florida awarded Bob Graham an honorary doctorate, the Doctor of Public Service.

Further Information

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