Today, Graham to attack less, praise more
By BILL ADAIR
Published July 28, 2004
BOSTON - Officials from John Kerry's campaign and the Democratic Party got an advance look at the speech Sen. Bob Graham will deliver tonight and gave him some advice: Tone it down.
They said Graham's speech was too critical of the Bush administration.
"They don't want it to be very confrontational, so we've had to make a few adjustments," Graham said Tuesday.
It seems odd that a low-key senator once dubbed "Governor Jell-O" could be too harsh for the Democratic National Convention. But the episode illustrates how Graham has morphed into a sharp critic of the Bush administration at the end of his political career.
As Graham, 67, prepares to retire from the Senate, he is trying to build his legacy. He has written a book criticizing the Bush intelligence operation. Next year, he will have a teaching fellowship at Harvard University. He plans to open a think tank in Florida to improve inter-American relations and encourage young people to pursue careers in politics and intelligence.
If Kerry wins the presidency, Graham has been mentioned as a likely Cabinet secretary for an agency such as homeland security or health and human services.
Long criticized for uninspiring speeches, Graham has enlisted consultant Gail Blanke to help him with his delivery. She accompanied him through a round of interviews at the convention Tuesday and occasionally whispered encouragement.
Despite the failure of his presidential campaign and again being passed over for running mate, Graham seems happier and more spirited than he has been in years. He says his retirement plans have him invigorated and ready for a new challenge.
"I feel very comfortable with the decision I made not to run for re-election," he said. "I'm excited about the next phase."
About 20 lobbyists and lawmakers attended a breakfast in his honor Tuesday morning, hosted by BlueCross BlueShield of Florida. It was held in the posh Boston College Club on the 36th floor of a downtown high-rise.
Cyrus Jollivette, senior vice president for public affairs for BlueCross BlueShield, called Graham "Mr. Florida" and said his retirement "is a loss to all of us. But we know that we have not heard the last of Bob Graham."
Graham told the group about his Harvard fellowship and his book, Intelligence Matters: the CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terror, to be published Sept. 7. The first half of the book will focus on events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, the second half will chronicle subsequent intelligence lapses.
He said it would depict "an administration that refused to learn the lessons of Sept. 11."
Graham spent most of Tuesday doing media interviews to boost the Democratic ticket.
Graham is famous for responding to questions with long, complicated answers. Tuesday he delivered crisp sound bites. Asked about the 9/11 Commission report that gives Congress partial blame for the attacks, Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he agreed.
"I think we spent too much time looking in the rear-view mirror at yesterday's failures and not enough looking out the front window" at what might happen in the future.
He also reviewed the fourth draft of tonight's speech, which he said was written by himself, his communications director Paul Anderson and Jeff Nussbaum, the co-author of his book. Blanke, his speech consultant, has been coaching him on how to deliver it. Blanke said she was encouraging Graham "to reveal to us how passionate he is." She added, "The main thing for him is to really love the speech ... and become intimate with it."
Graham said he toned it down, as party and campaign officials requested, removing criticism that the Bush administration ignored reports about the dangers of terrorism.
"It'll be mainly on intelligence and what John Kerry and John Edwards will do to make us safer by giving leadership for intelligence reform," he said.
"The theme of this convention is vision for the future. It's not to bash President Bush for mistakes of the past."