The Orlando Sentinel has called on Sen. Bob Graham to "bow to political reality" and end his struggling campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. In an editorial, the newspaper said, "Mr. Graham has been a great asset to Florida - the reason we have strongly endorsed him in his campaigns for the Senate. That's where he belongs."
The Sentinel's position probably speaks for many Floridians, including some supporters of Graham's presidential candidacy and independents who would vote for Graham for senator but not for president.
I think it is premature to write off Graham's presidential bid as Quixotic more than five months before the first primary ballots will be cast. I know his presidential poll numbers are dismal, and there are few signs that his campaign is gaining traction in Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the first presidential caucus and primary respectively. But anything can happen in politics, and Graham might yet generate some sparks, although I can't see his candidacy setting the political fields on fire.
To abandon his campaign now would make Graham look like a quitter and might even make him less attractive as a vice presidential candidate. Even worse, he would spend the rest of his life wondering what might have been had he stayed the course. At some point, however, Graham will have to come to terms with political reality and decide whether he wants to be president, vice president or a U.S. senator.
The biggest decision facing Graham in the near term is not whether to press ahead with his reach for the presidency but whether to seek a fourth term in the U.S. Senate next year. When asked if he will re-up for Senate duty if his presidential bid crashes, the senator has a stock answer: The only office he is seeking is the Oval Office. That keeps his options open, but it also is making it difficult for state Democrats to gear up for a Senate campaign in the event Graham decides, in February or March, not to seek re-election.
It could get even more complicated. The 2004 Democratic National Convention is set for July 26-29 in Boston; the Florida primary election will be held on Aug. 31. Suppose Graham drops out of the presidential pack after bombing in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary next February and announces that he intends to seek another term in the Senate. Then, just days before the Democratic convention, Graham is asked by the party's nominee to be his vice-presidential running mate. Under Florida law, Graham cannot run for two offices on the same ballot, so he would have to make a choice - to go for the vice presidency or stay in the Senate race. If he jumped from the Senate race to the national ticket, that would leave Florida Democrats without a Senate candidate three months before the November election.
I have no idea whether Graham would accept the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket. But let's face it: Graham has been on so many vice-presidential short lists in recent election years that many Democrats have trouble of thinking of him as anything else. Some Democrats believe Graham would be an even more attractive vice-presidential candidate next year than he would have been four or eight years ago. For one thing, he is a popular senator from a key battleground state that decided (along with the U.S. Supreme Court) the last presidential election. But putting Graham on the ticket would not guarantee a Democratic victory in Florida. Recent polls have found that if the election were held today, President Bush would carry Florida even with Graham on the Democratic ticket.
In its editorial, the Orlando newspaper expressed concern that Graham's sharp attacks on the president already have damaged his political standing with Florida voters who have never thought of the senator as a partisan warrior. In refashioning himself as a presidential candidate, the editorial said, "Mr. Graham has moved away from the moderate, bipartisan approach he has successfully followed in Washington. His shifts to the political left and partisanship during the campaign already have alienated political moderates in Florida."
I say let Graham keep scratching his presidential itch and filling his notebooks with minutiae from the campaign trail. No one expects Graham at this point to publicly announce his political intentions beyond the presidential race. However, he needs to be giving serious thought to his political future and probably is. In his own mind, he must know whether he will seek another Senate term if his presidential candidacy collapses. And he also probably has been thinking about how another Senate campaign could make it difficult for him to accept his party's vice-presidential nomination, assuming it would be offered and he would be interested.
The worst decision Graham can make in coming weeks and months is to refuse to make any of these choices on a timetable that does not further disadvantage Florida Democrats. That would be unfair to his party and to his state, and it could give Republicans another opportunity to increase their Senate majority.
