The presidential campaign of Florida Sen. Bob Graham proves that perceptions and reality often are light years apart.
Although Graham would make an excellent president, the Miami Lakes Democrat has no chance of winning. The problem is that, except for people who know him well, he is not being measured by the substance of his political life, which has been exemplary. At 66, Graham, one of Florida's most popular and effective politicians ever, is being measured by his lack of charisma.
Born wealthy, Graham graduated from the University of Florida in 1959, with a bachelor of arts degree with high honors, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard. He made a ton of money as a land developer, won elections to the Florida House and Senate, served two terms as governor and is in his 16th year as U.S. senator. He was one of our best governors in modern times. He initiated and found ways to fund several programs to protect the state's natural treasures. The names of the programs alone manifest his commitment to environmental stewardship - Save Our Everglades, Save Our Rivers, Save Our Coasts.
Graham made improving public education a centerpiece of his administration. How else, he asked, could Florida attract business and industry if our schools were perceived as being substandard?
During his eight-year tenure in Tallahassee, Graham created 1-million new jobs, with 93,000 of them in manufacturing. And before many of his peers in other states did so, he focused on health care, especially for the elderly.
Graham guided Florida through some of its worst crises. Consider: The trucker strike in 1979 that nearly halted commerce statewide forced the governor to bring in, along with other remedies, the National Guard. The surprising 1980 influx of 160,000 Cuban and Haitian refugees to South Florida challenged Graham to find new resources to serve this difficult population. He had to marshal ways to quell racial violence in Dade County's Liberty City, where 18 residents died. Then, of course, he had to find ways to deal with the state's illegal drug trade that was aided by the peninsula's thousands of miles of ocean shoreline.
As a U.S. senator, he has served Florida and the rest of the nation well. Even his GOP opponents respect him. He has been a gentleman, a fair player and a diligent worker. And throughout his career both in Florida and Washington, Graham has avoided the partisanship that makes so many other elected officials ineffective.
Graham is the first Florida governor I got to know personally. I was with him during several of his signature "workdays," when he works alongside ordinary citizens. I was with him when he picked tomatoes for Six L Farms in Naples, when he picked citrus for Haines City Citrus Growers in Haines City and when he taught at the Redland's Christian Migrant Center in Homestead. I saw him at his best three years ago, when his Washington office invited me to meet the senator in Immokalee. I spent the day with him visiting migrant farm workers in their homes and schools.
He listened to these laborers and gathered information that would help him craft guest-worker legislation. Although I opposed the legislation, I respected Graham for going into the field to talk with the people his bill would affect.
Always the wonk, Graham has been a successful, hands-on kind of guy all of his political life. And, yet, his presidential campaign cannot gain traction. His poll numbers are dismal at this stage of the contest, his fundraising is anemic at best and the national press is mostly giving him the cold shoulder.
How can the substance of his leadership, his intellect and solid grasp of pressing issues be so at odds with perceptions of him? Broadly, he has had the good fortune of winning where ability, integrity and congeniality have mattered more than slick rhetoric, telegenic looks and charisma.
Sensing that his campaign is flat, the patrician Graham has morphed into something of an attack dog. He is not himself. The change shows, at least to those of us who know him. Voters seeing him for the first time may view him as a Bush-hating Democrat whose platform is simply dissing the wartime president. I do not like what I am seeing. I fear that by trying to match the rhetoric of his Democratic rivals, Graham is hurting his chance to be re-elected to the Senate - if, of course, he wants to return to the Senate.
Because he cannot win the presidency, the best thing Graham can do for Florida is to quit the big race and focus on keeping his Senate seat. And I do not want him to be the vice president. I want him to be Florida's other Democratic senator.
