PANAMA CITY — Sen. Bill Nelson on Wednesday endorsed Gwen Graham’s bid to oust Rep. Steve Southerland from Florida’s District 2 U.S. House seat as her eight-day, 14-county Grilling with the Grahams campaign blitz wrapped up.
“What we’re here for is to elect some common sense to the United States Congress, so the reason I’m here is to endorse Gwen Graham for Congress,” said Nelson, who drew shouts and applause from hundreds of people who crammed into a stuffy clubhouse at Daffin Park in Panama City.
Although the election is expected to be tight and political action committees around country are expected to cough up big bucks on ads, the race will be won with votes, said former Florida Gov. Bob Graham, Gwen Graham’s father.
“I don’t think that this is a campaign that will be won or lost based on 30-second TV spots,” he said.
Gwen Graham, a Democrat, surveyed the crowd as she waited in the wings for an introduction from Nelson.
“In my wildest dreams I didn’t expect a turnout like this,” she said.
No one mentioned Southerland’s name during the event, but it was clear who Nelson was referring to with comments about the government shutdown and the violence against women act, two common jabs from Graham’s campaign.
Graham’s feel-good stump speech was long on hugging and dancing and optimism and compromise, but short on specific policy details. Still, she got in a few digs of her own at her Republican opponent. She was critical of Southerland’s comment that his $174,000 salary was “not so much,” according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
“Why are we paying you a dime when you’re not doing anything?” she said.
The lack of specifics was forgivable at this point in the campaign, said Jack Peterson, who attended with his wife Deanna. He didn’t hear everything he wanted to hear from Graham, but he said he “heard enough for a campaign kickoff.”
Peterson said his politics are more issue-centered — he doesn’t really care much which party wins — but he wants a government that works and elected officials who are open to compromise. He was ticked about the government shutdown.
Public health is one of the issues Peterson is passionate about. He’s a retired educator in the field of mosquito control and mosquito-borne illness. He said Southerland voted the right way recently on bill that could have negatively impacted mosquito control programs, but he more often disagrees with the congressman.
He was pretty excited after the event.
“There was a really great energy in here tonight,” Peterson said.
Bay County is Southerland’s electoral bread-and-butter — he’s received more than 70 percent of votes here the past two elections — a fact that Gwen Graham acknowledged. She urged her supporters to talk up their friends, family, neighbors and even strangers, and said the first campaign office she opened was in Bay County “because I wanted to send a strong signal that I’m going to represent everybody in this district.”
Earlier Wednesday, the aptly named Grilling with the Grahams tour featured eight family members spanning three generations planting smooth cord grass to guard against shore erosion in St. Andrew Bay. The workdays were a hallmark of her father’s numerous successful campaigns.
The sessions are a way for Graham to gain an understanding of issues she is not as familiar with as she would like to be, campaign spokesman Eric Conrad said.
“The tradition of the Graham workday really speaks to what North Florida Way is about,” Conrad said.