Hey, Iowa, meet the Grahams

For Florida Sen. Bob Graham, hitting the campaign trail is a family affair as he tries to make a name for himself among Iowa voters who, by and large, don't know him.

[Times photo: Jamie Francis]

Bob Graham is hugged by five of his 10 grandchildren after giving a speech Thursday to open his Des Moines, Iowa, campaign office.

	Graham's itinerary

CHARITON, Iowa - Only one presidential candidate looking for votes in Iowa waxes nostalgic about Tiny Two, a prize-winning heifer from his 4-H days.

Only one enthusiastically leads three generations of family members in a corny campaign song.

"From Atlantic to Pacific, we all say, He's terrific! America needs Bob Graham todaaaay," 20 swaying members of the Graham family croon to Democrats at campaign picnics.

"He's hysterical. Is he always so funny? I had no idea," Elyse Weiss, a Democratic activist in Des Moines, said after meeting Graham at a cookout.

Most Iowans have no idea what Florida's senior senator is about.

Graham barely registers in state opinion polls five months before the Iowa caucuses. He has spent little time in the state compared to other candidates, and the Democratic governor doesn't rank him in the top tier of nine contenders.

Midway through a nine-day road trip through Iowa, Graham is introducing himself to voters who know him primarily as the guy on CNN soberly warning about President Bush leaving America vulnerable to terrorists.

Graham still hits the president hard on terrorism and the economy in his stump speeches. But Iowans also are meeting a man known to 10 grandkids as "Doodle." In a state that embraces its agricultural roots, Graham volunteers that he was born on a cattle ranch in South Florida and would eagerly sell anyone one of the family's angus bulls.

"And we'll deliver right to you," the 66-year-old senator told cattleman Dwayne Harrold at the Iowa State Fair.

Perusing the angus brochures Graham's wife, Adele, thrust at him, Harrold looked impressed.

"I'm just as interested in his cattle as I am in Bob - probably more so," he confessed.

Around 100,000 people will vote on caucus day Jan. 19, and winning them over requires a lot of one-on-one conversations. Voters are accustomed to personally meeting presidential candidates.

"A question I have is about your age. I'm 66 like you. You'd be over 70 in your second term," farmer Marc Shirley asked Graham at a cookout in Des Moines.

"You look like a very healthy man, Marc," Graham responded. "I consider myself, like you, to be a healthy 66. I'm as healthy as Ronald Reagan was."

"Only I'm not so sure Reagan was all there in his second term," Shirley said.

Graham burst out laughing and clasped Shirley's shoulder. "That's probably not the best example I could use."

Graham is a late entry in a nine-person Democratic field and aggressively introduces himself as a centrist who understands the values and concerns of a state half the country away from Florida.

With his wife of 44 years, four daughters, four sons-in-law and 10 grandkids in tow, he hopes to use this campaign swing to "invade and persuade" as many Iowans as possible.

Other candidates have been working Iowa's grange halls and coffee shops for more than a year. Graham, registering 1 percent in the latest poll, has barely started.

"We have yet to see what he can do, but I suspect it won't help," Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said of Graham's RV tour of Iowa. "Howard Dean has been spending nights with families all over Iowa for months."

Vilsack said Iowa is shaping up as a contest between former Vermont Gov. Dean, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. He said Graham, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut have little identity in the state and little chance of winning the caucus vote.

"Some of the candidates have visited so often, it's like Cheers. They walk in the door and people go, "Howard!' or "John!' " state Rep. Mark Davitt said as Graham chatted with Democrats at a restaurant south of Des Moines.

Graham was upbeat Sunday about the prospects of gaining momentum as more Iowans get to know him. But he acknowledged his late start has hurt, particularly in fundraising outside Florida. He will spend much of September raising money.

Still, many likely caucusgoers say they haven't made up their minds or may switch preferred candidates. From a sweet corn festival in West Point to a lakeside barbecue in Des Moines, the reviews for Graham were favorable over the past few days.

"He's very impressive. He's friendly and folksy, not at all distant. That will help him in Iowa. He seems like one of us," said former Iowa Secretary of State Elaine Baxter of Burlington, who watched Graham at a cookout Saturday night along the banks of the Mississippi River.

Dean and Kerry have each phoned her twice, but Baxter won't pick her candidate for months. For now, she's looking mostly at Dean, Kerry and Gephardt.

"I want to go with a winner," she said.

That is one of Graham's problems. He needs to convince people he can win the nomination, but he's barely registering in the polls and has weak fundraising so far, even with Florida's broad fundraising base.

"Florida was more challenging because of Jeb Bush. I think he keeps a watch over who's contributing. We've had many people say, "Is there any way of me contributing without people knowing?' " said Gwen Logan, Graham's oldest daughter, who is confident her father will raise enough money.

"I get emotional about this," she said. "I truly believe he would be an incredible president for our country."

Before they disappear amid the state fair rides, deep-fried Twinkie booths, and the Ayrshire cow sculpted from 600 pounds of butter, Adele Graham instructs the 10 grandkids in Bob Graham T-shirts to represent Doodle well.

Graham family members, who tend to hug each other a lot, are a big part of the campaign to capture the hearts of Iowans.

"I think people can judge you by who you're closest to," Graham said.

At campaign events, the adults work the crowds while the grandkids, ages 3 to 12, frolic inside two RVs or on the outskirts of the group until summoned.

"The singing can be sort of embarrassing," confessed 10-year-old Graham Logan.

That didn't stop the grandchildren from bounding over, all smiles, for another You've Got a Friend in Bob Graham rendition at a cookout with Democrats in Centerville.

"Well," explained 8-year-old William McCollough, "I'd had six cans of Coke."

Graham's daughters trigger applause from spectators, scold reporters whose stories displease them and never hesitate to chime in if the candidate is inadequately extolling his virtues.

"Dad, don't forget to tell them about the work days," Gwen Logan said as Graham finished talking to a barn full of Democrats in rural Chariton.

"Dad, tell them how you handled the Mariel boatlift," Suzanne Gibson shouted at another point.

Adele Graham distributes pictures of the grandchildren to voters and urges Iowans to remember that Democrats in recent years have lost presidential elections without a nominee from the South.

"When you elect a president," she said, "you get a family."

The Washington Post Magazine dubbed Graham "the scariest man in Washington" because the former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman has been so outspoken about shortcomings in President Bush's antiterrorism efforts.

There's little scary about Graham in Iowa.

Voters see a cherubic-faced senator with grandkids wrapped around his neck. He jokes that he might seem a tad unstable to voters after 390 "workdays" (the latest at an Iowa ethanol plant). He talks about growing up on a dairy and cattle farm in Florida, and the values of self-responsibility he learned on the farm and as a 4-H member.

Graham criticizes the president for neglecting the threat from "Osama Bin Forgotten" and failing to level with Americans about how difficult or costly occupying Iraq could be. He talks at least as much about the economy and his 40-page economic plan that would eliminate Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

He often notes that billionaire investor Warren Buffett is supporting his campaign. He says Buffett recently told him that cutting dividend taxes had reduced his tax rate to 3 percent.

"Friends," Graham says, "there is something fundamentally wrong when one of the richest men in the world is paying 3 percent and his secretary is paying more than 25 percent."

Teacher Deb Egeland stood beside a lake near Centerville watching Graham talk to voters, his grandkids running around nearby.

"He reminds me a little of Jimmy Carter, he seems like such a nice, kind man," she said. "But I sort of wonder if he's a little too nice to be running for president."

- Times staff writer Lucy Morgan contributed to this report. Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

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