Former U.S. senator and two-term Florida governor Bob Graham, who rose to national prominence as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee following the 2001 terrorist attacks and as an early critic of the Iraq War, has died. He was 87 years old.
Graham's family announced the death Tuesday in a statement posted on social media site X by his daughter Gwen Graham.
“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, a dedicated public servant and, most importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather,” the family said.
Graham, who served three terms in the Senate, made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasizing his opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
But his candidacy was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003, and he was never able to gain enough traction among voters to catch up, withdrawing in October. He did not seek reelection in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martínez.
Graham was a man of many peculiarities. He perfected the political “workday” trick of spending a day doing a variety of jobs, from windshield wiper to FBI agent, and kept a meticulous diary, writing down almost everyone he talked to, everything he ate, the shows he watched on television. what he saw and even his golf scores.
Graham said the notebooks were a work tool for him and he was reluctant to describe his emotions or personal feelings in them.
“I review them to see the calls that need to be made, the memos that need to be dictated, the meetings I want to follow up on, and the things people promise to do,” he said.
Graham was an early opponent of the Iraq war, saying it diverted U.S. attention toward the battle against terrorism centered in Afghanistan. He also criticized President George W. Bush for not having an occupation plan in Iraq after U.S. forces ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Graham said Bush led the United States into the war by exaggerating claims about the danger posed by Iraqi weapons of destruction that were never found. He said Bush distorted intelligence and argued it was more serious than the sexual misconduct problems that led the House to impeach President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. This led to his brief and unsuccessful candidacy. presidential.
“The quagmire in Iraq is a distraction that the Bush administration, and only the Bush administration, has created,” Graham said in 2003.
During his 18 years in Washington, Graham worked well with colleagues from both parties, particularly Florida Republican Connie Mack during their 12 years together in the Senate.
As a politician, few were better. Florida voters hardly considered him the wealthy, Harvard-educated lawyer that he was.
Graham's political career spanned five decades, beginning with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966.
He won a seat in the state Senate in 1970 and was then elected governor in 1978. He was re-elected in 1982. Four years later, he won his first of three terms in the U.S. Senate when he unseated Republican incumbent Paula Hawkins.
Graham remained very popular among Florida voters: he won re-election by wide margins in 1992 and 1998, when he won 63 of 67 counties. In that last election, he defeated Charlie Crist, who later served as Republican governor from 2007 to 2011.
“It blew me out of the water and I came to know even more why over the course of the campaign,” Crist said Tuesday night. “I learned to respect him even more than I already had and to love him for the good and decent man he was.”
Crist, who has since switched parties and most recently served as a U.S. representative, said Graham was an influence on him.
“I always felt that when he was governor, he was trying to govern for the people of Florida, in no way political or partisan, and I took that seriously and tried, in some ways, to emulate him,” Crist said.
House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi called Graham “a patriotic American” and thanked him for his “distinguished public service.” She highlighted his work in the 9/11 investigation and said he “bravely opposed entering the war in Iraq.”
“He brought his love for his family and his state of Florida to the Senate, where he served with immense dignity and courage,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
Even when he was in Washington, Graham never took his eyes off the state and leadership in Tallahassee.
When Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated the Board of Regents in 2001, Graham saw it as a move to politicize the state university system. The following year he successfully led a petition campaign for a state constitutional amendment creating the Board of Governors to assume the role of regents.
Daniel Robert Graham was born on November 9, 1936 in Coral Gables, where his father, Ernest “Cap” Graham, had moved from South Dakota and established a large dairy operation. Young Bob milked cows, built fences and collected manure as a teenager. One of his half-brothers, Phillip Graham, was editor of The Washington Post and Newsweek until he took his own life in 1963, just a year after Bob Graham graduated from Harvard Law.
Graham was student body president of Miami Senior High School and attended the University of Florida, graduating in 1959.
In 1966 he was elected to the Florida Legislature, where he focused primarily on education and health care issues.
As governor, he signed numerous death warrants, founded the Save the Manatee Club with artist Jimmy Buffett, and led efforts to establish several environmental programs.
Graham pushed a bond program to buy beaches and barrier islands threatened by development and initiated the Save Our Everglades program to protect the state's water supply, wetlands and endangered species.
Graham was also known for his 408 “work days,” including stints as a housewife, boxing ring announcer, flight attendant and arson investigator. They grew out of a teaching stint as a member of the Florida Senate Education Committee and then morphed into a campaign gimmick that helped him relate to the average voter.
“This has been a very important part of my development as a public official, having learned on a very human level what the people of Florida expect, what they want, what their aspirations are and then trying to interpret that and turn it into a policy that improve their lives,” Graham said in 2004 while completing his last job wrapping Christmas gifts.
After leaving public life in 2005, Graham spent much of his time at a public policy center named after him at the University of Florida and lobbying the Legislature to require more civics classes in the state's public schools. .
Graham was one of five members selected for an independent commission by President Barack Obama in June 2010 to investigate a massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatened marine life and beaches across several U.S. states. southeastern Gulf.
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