This article is about the American politician. For Bob Graham the English Lakeland fell-runner and his long-standing Lakeland 24-hour record see Bob Graham Round.
Daniel Robert Graham (born November 9, 1936) is an American politician. He was a United States Senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005 and the governor of that state from 1979 to 1987. Following a failed bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2004 presidential race, Graham was considered a possible running mate for John Kerry.
Graham dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination on October 6, 2003 and announced his retirement from the Senate on November 3, 2003.
Graham just finished serving a one-year term as an Institute of Politics Fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is now concentrating his efforts on establishing the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida.

Personal background
Graham is a Democrat who has never lost an election. He was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966 and reelected in 1968. He was elected to the Florida State Senate in 1970 and was reelected 1974.

Political career
Bob Graham began Workdays in 1974, teaching a semester of civics at Miami Carol City Senior High School in Miami while serving in the Florida Senate. He performed 100 Workdays in 1986 during his first successful campaign for U.S. Senate. Since then, he has completed 386 Workdays, more than a year's worth of days spent laboring side-by-side with the people he represents. His Workdays are an extension of his belief in a personal style of governing.
Graham has continued doing Workdays throughout his tenure as governor and in the United States Senate. His jobs have included service as a police officer, busboy, railroad engineer, construction worker, fisherman, garbageman, factory worker, and teacher. On No. 365, he checked in customers, handled baggage and helped serve passengers on US Airways.

Workdays
Bob Graham was elected Governor of Florida in 1978 after a seven-way Democratic primary race in which he initially placed second to Robert L. Shevin. His supporters at the time dubbed themselves "Graham crackers." Graham was reelected in 1982 with 65% of the vote, defeating Republican Skip Bafalis. As governor he was probably best known for his failure to stop the Mariel Boatlift, pro-environmental policy, and overseeing resumption of the Florida Death Penalty (16 people were electrocuted when he was governor.)

Lieutenant Governor: Wayne Mixson
Secretary of State: George Firestone
Attorney General: Alan Becker (1978–82), Jim Smith (1982–86)
Treasurer: Bill Gunter
Comptroller: Gerald Lewis
Agriculture Commissioner: Doyle Conner
Education Commissioner: Ralph Turlington U.S. Senator
Graham announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2004 election on the Democratic ticket on February 27, 2003. However, on October 7, 2003, he announced (with polls showing him in last place among a field of ten candidates) he was ending his presidential campaign, saying he started his campaign too late and had trouble raising money. In November, he announced that he would not seek another term in the Senate.
After John Kerry became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in March 2004, there was some discussion in the media that Graham might be on the short list of Kerry's choices for vice president, presumably at least in part because having Graham on the ticket could help Kerry win Florida in the presidential election. Shortly before Kerry chose Sen. John Edwards, the Kerry campaign printed "Kerry-Graham" posters and bumper stickers in case Edwards declined to be Kerry's running mate. Many wonder whether Graham's selection as a vice presidential candidate would have won Florida, and thus, the presidency, for the Democrats.

Presidential candidate
After teaching at Harvard University for the 2005–2006 academic year, Graham is now focused on founding two centers to train future political leaders, one at the University of Florida — where he earned his bachelor's degree in history in 1959 — and one in his hometown at University of Miami. The UF Center, known as the Bob Graham Center for Public Service[1], will be housed in the university's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences[2] and will provide students with opportunities to train for future leadership positions, meet current policymakers and take courses in critical thinking, language learning and studies of world cultures. Over the summer of 2006, ground broke on the construction of Pugh Hall on the UF campus — funded by longtime friend of Graham, Jim Pugh, and his wife Alexis — which will house the new center.
Graham is also currently writing a book on civic education and how a citizen can participate in our democracy in effective ways.

Business interests
On November 18, 2005, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was rebuilt during Graham's time as Governor (supposedly with great input from him), was renamed the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge by the Florida Legislature.
On May 6, 2006 at the Spring commencement for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the University of Florida awarded Bob Graham an honorary doctorate, the Doctor of Public Service.