Me and Bob

Note: I wrote this planning on publishing it on Bob's birthday last year and ended up setting it aside.  I went back to it the night he passed.  

Like all good Florida Men of a certain age, Bob Graham was a ubiquitous figure throughout my life – the Governor and Senator of my childhood, before as serving as the most prominent public figure of my early career.  

But despite his ever presence, other than a quick greeting, I didn’t meet Bob Graham until his time in public life was ending – and mine in the public light was just beginning.

In late 2003, a friend of mine asked me a favor - can we help build a crowd for an announcement that Senator Graham will be making after a workday at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee?   Of course, I said, and off to Lincoln a bunch of us went, to watch Senator Graham finish a day helping rip up the old track to make way for a new one around the football field.   

As we all gathered, Senator Graham climbs out of the tractor he was piloting, walks over, and announces he wasn’t running for re-election.  He was walking away after 38 years in public life, on his own terms.  I walked away sad this guy I admired was leaving office. 

A few weeks later, that same friend calls:  “Senator Graham would like to have lunch with you next week when he’s in town”

Me?  I’m just a lowly 29-year old Democratic press flack.  Why in the hell would Bob Graham want to have lunch with me, I thought, before obviously accepting this invitation.

At the announced time, I wandered over to Po Boys (now Chuck’s Fish) in Tallahassee, walking in as Senator Graham did.  After he spent a good 20 minutes working the room, we sit down – and he starts grilling me:  what were we working on in the legislature – how we were communicating with voters and the press – who were the rising stars he should know – and most importantly, how can he help, all while scribbling in that ever-present notebook – while I am wondering whether he is taking notes about our conversation,  or writing “wasted my time having lunch with a moron today.”

A few weeks later, he called the office - causing quite an internal stir when he asked to talk to me, and once he left office these occasional calls turned into semi-regular conversations on various issues in the state over breakfast at Jacobs in downtown Tallahassee, or coffee at his townhouse just down the street, typically just him and me – and of course the notebook. 

In 2006, he helped me recruit, then supported our candidates for the legislature, and in 2008, when I was offered the job to run then Senator Obama’s campaign in Florida, he was one of the first calls of congratulations – a call that was quickly followed up by a several hour Friday night taco dinner near our office in Ybor City.  

That was one of the few conversations where he did nearly all of the talking.  He laid out very specifically all the reasons he thought previous campaigns in Florida had either won or lost, and gave me invaluable advice on navigating the politics of politics of Florida, as well as advice on leading a team.   It was the kind of counsel you could only get from someone who had won 5 statewide elections.

It is one of my fondest memories of him, in part because it took place in a taco joint – in Ybor City – on a Friday night – with Bob Graham.  And since he hadn't been out of office long, he was still a fairly recognizable face.

Just to set this scene – Bob is in his khakis, some kind of neatly pressed plaid oxford shirt, and a blazer.  Always a blazer.  Meanwhile, I probably looked like I hadn’t slept in three days because I am fairly certain I hadn’t.  

As we enjoyed our tacos, lateish night taco-seekers started coming over to say “holy shit (or some other descriptor) - you are bob graham, followed by fill-in-the blank (you came to my middle school/wrote my dad a note/worked with my mom on a work day/my grandfather loves you).  Seemingly everyone who walked in that night had a story.  It didn’t matter what someone was wearing, what they looked like, or that night, their state of inebriation, Bob took his time with everyone.  Had selfies been a thing in those days, there is no doubt those images would have been memorable! 

Staffing Bob Graham was an absolute nightmare for this exact reason.  When you are staffing a principal, your basic job is to get someone from point A to B then to C as efficiently as possible.  But the problem with Bob - if getting from A to B meant passing 100 people – if 100 people wanted a word with him (and God help you if you met somone he had been on a workday with), he’d take time for all 100 individually – and take down their name, and their address to follow up.  And it didn’t matter who was waiting for him - whoever he was talking to was the most important person in the world. 

Bob was invaluable to us – and to me in 2008, as he was again in 2012.  We talked often about strategy, politics, and the state.  If I didn’t reach out frequently enough, I knew what number would soon pop up on the phone.  He knew the right questions to ask to get me thinking about the right things.  But more importantly to me, he was unfailingly supportive, while at the same time, not being a burden.  If he could say yes to our asks, he did.  And I knew he loved those few moments when he could hop in front of 10 or 20,000 people, where he'd always get a well-deserved folk hero's welcome.  

By the end of the 2012 cycle, I was physically and emotionally spent.  I had worked on 5 consecutive statewide efforts – some years spending more nights away from home than at home, with 2012 being especially taxing.  I needed a break – and announced that I was stepping back from politics to pursue a few things that would allow me to start to have some semblance of a normal life.   

The morning after my announcement, I was out for a run and my phone rang - “Steve, Hi, it's Bob Graham.  I understand you are taking some time away from politics, but I just have one favor:  My daughter Gwen is thinking about running for Congress, it would mean a lot if you weould talk to her, maybe give her some guidance?”

Damn. I knew what this meant.

Yes sir.  Of course.  10 minutes later, still trying to finish my run, Gwen called. I was out of the game for an entire 24 hours.

Over the next decade of Gwen’s campaigns and public service, I got to see Bob in a whole new light:  Bob the supportive father.  He glowed watching her shine.  It was truly something to see.  I’ll come back to this.

There are so many wonderful and at times funny political memories:  traveling with Bob when he was campaigning for others – learning that he had this encyclopedic knowledge of lunch spots around Florida and specifically, who had good specials on what days. Or watching him work a rope line - that for him was more like a reunion with friends from all eras of life.   One time, he spent so long out there I had to had to go fish him away to keep him from being left behind from President Obama's soon to depart motorcade!

Then of course, there are the personal ones:  getting educated at their family farm about the mechanics of cow breeding, in the most antiseptic Bob Graham way ever, to watching him jokingly chew someone out for getting potatoes instead of grits at a breakfast diner known for its grits, to listening to him and Adele tell colorful and often hilarious Jimmy Buffett stories, as we worked on his statement the morning after his friend of 40 years died. 

But for all his strengths, I believe his true super power was his ability to listen.  He may have had a degree from Harvard, but his real education came from the people of Florida, one person at a time.  He wanted to learn, and he believed everyone he came in contact with was someone he could learn from.  

In 2014, during Gwen’s first campaign, we were attacked on something based on a note that Bob had written to Gwen, which we learned the Republicans had dug up in his archives.  The next day, I drove to Gainesville and went through all the same boxes – finding the offending note (which was hardly offending), but also finding in those boxes, a remarkable window into Bob.  

Yes, his Senate papers at UF have memos and notes related to his work, but the vast majority of those papers are his correspondence to and from everyday Floridians.  Go ask for his papers and what you will get are boxes and boxes of boxes of letters.   Letters from Presidents, letters from foreign leaders, but more importantly, letters from people from every walk of life.

People wrote him – or stopped him in public to tell them their hopes, their fears, and their ideas.   He jotted down those interactions in his notebooks, and not only did he write everyone back, every one of those letters, at some level, was personalized,  a genuine acknowledgement that he heard them (though he did often recycle a very Bob Graham line “It was wonderful to see you at XXX.  I am confident if I spent a lifetime at XXX airport/XXX restaurant, I would meet everyone alive”).    He took something from every one of those interactions – and each one molded how he saw his state, his country, and his place in it.    

The last folder I found  included a series of polls from his last race.  On the eve of his fifth statewide race, Florida voters were asked if they thought he was an honest and trustworthy man.  67% said yes – to only 9% who said no.  There isn’t a politician on the planet who could point to those kinds of numbers.  I doubt we will ever see anything like that again, at least in my lifetime.

I saw Bob for the last time about six months ago. To be honest, I was worried I’d wake up to bad news, regretting never having the chance to say thank you.  Thankfully, Mrs. Graham was kind enough to allow me to visit them in Gainesville to say my peace. 

While time had taken its toll, he looked good, and after I thanked him for all he had done for me, like every other conversation we ever had, he started asking me the questions – about politics, about Florida, about my family, and about the work I was doing.  He was as interested and curious as the day we sat down at Po Boys, some 20 years earlier.  His body might have been waning, but his love for this place we call home was as solid as ever, as was his core belief in the promise that an educated citizenry could deliver change.  

I don’t know why Bob showed a fondness towards me, but I am blessed that he did.  He believed that you can find common ground if you to have honest conversations and create the space for agreement (“Steve, campaigns might be run in the red zone, but you have to govern between the 40s” is something he said to me once), that you can disagree without being disagreeable, and that you can succeed in public life by being a decent person.  And he made me better by pushing me to ask harder questions, to take on bigger challenges, and frankly, because I didn’t ever want to disappoint him. 

Gwen always says of her Dad, simply:  “he is just the best.”   And he was.  The best of all of us.  He was unquestionably one of the greatest and most consequential individuals our state has ever seen, but his real legacy was that he was an even better human. 

I knew it was the last time I would see him, and I suspect he did too.  Towards the end of that last conversation, right before I said goodbye, I mentioned that I was starting again to get burned out by politics.  He stopped me. 

Whatever Gwen wants to do, you’ll help her?

Of course sir. 

I am heartbroken for Mrs. Graham.  In addition to being the epitome of grace and class, she was Bob’s fiercest defender and protector.  Her fingerprints on this state are everywhere, and she loved his work as much as he did.  Adele has been nothing but kind to Nikole and I for as long as we have known them.   We are both deeply saddened by his passing, and know how much he meant not just to Adele, but to all of his kids, grandkids, and extended family.

And of course, Gwen, I wish I knew the magic words.  I’ve lost my father, so I get it.  All I can say is I wish for a moment, you could have seen what it was like to stand on our side - next to your Dad, watching him watch you as you shined.  Words can not describe just how proud of you he was.  You are the best reflection of him. 

Godspeed sir.  Thank you for your service.  Thank you for your friendship.