PANAMA CITY — She's been called a liberal D.C. insider lobbyist handpicked by Nancy Pelosi to run for Congress, but Wednesday afternoon Gwen Graham faced her greatest challenge to date on the campaign trail.
She had to walk in heels on the uneven lattice pavers of Gulf Coast State College Military Park, so the rest of the campaign actually has been easier than a walk in the park.
"Navigating this in heels is the biggest challenge I've faced so far in this campaign," Graham said with a chuckle before she launched into a criticism of Rep. Steve Southerland's vote to shut down the federal government on Oct. 1, 2013, and his subsequent vote against the bill that reopened it.
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"A year ago Congressman Southerland, not only did he vote twice to continue the shut down, he voted to default on our national debt as well," Graham said. "It has hurt so many people in our country. With a $24 billion waste of taxpayer funds, every single taxpayer in this country paid $300 for that shutdown to continue."
Graham was flanked by local veterans, including Army veteran Jim Brunner, who described the difficulties he faced during the shutdown, which imposed furloughs on civilian contractors at Bay County's military installations. Brunner felt the impact of the furlough when the commissary at Tyndall Air Force Base, where he and many other veterans and military families buy groceries, closed for more than a week.
"So when Congressman Southerland decided, one year ago, to shut down the government, many veterans like me felt very strongly betrayed by his Washington way of doing things," Brunner said.
Pastor Ricky Rivers, an Air Force veteran, said the shutdown delayed the Veterans Administration benefits due to him, and he's still waiting.
"For him to have done this — it's a travesty, not only for myself but for many of the other vets who are waiting for their updates on their VA benefits," Rivers said.
Of course, not every veteran feels this way. Richard Plantec of Panama City Beach served four years in the Air Force, and he feels Southerland is not to blame for the shutdown. Southerland is a strong supporter of veterans, he said.
Plantec compared the standoff to King Solomon's decision to split the baby; Republican's eventually agreed to fund government operations — even though they didn't succeed in defunding Obamacare — because they cared more than Democrats, Plantec said.
"If you've got two sides that disagree, you can't blame one side for shutting down the government," Plantec said. "You could really say the Senate and the president shut down the government."
Plantec, who recently delivered a petition to Graham's Panama City campaign office demanding she denounce a third-party advertisement he felt was misleading, said politicians cherry-pick facts that over-simplify complex procedures and use them as sound-bites in 30-second spots.
"Facts don't always reveal the truth," he said. "Sometimes they obscure the truth."
That was the response from Southerland's campaign as well.
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Southerland spokesman Matt McCullough said Southerland and House Republicans passed three bills that would've averted the shutdown before it happened, but Senate Democrats refused to consider them because they would have defunded Obamacare. During the shutdown, Southerland voted for more than a dozen bills that would have funded essential services and a variety of veterans' programs, he said.
"Gwen Graham's not being honest and she knows it," McCullough said. "Steve voted three times to fund the government, and it was only when Gwen's party bosses in Washington refused to join him that the government shut down. Steve then voted more than a dozen additional times to fund critical services during the shutdown, including veterans' benefits. Gwen has no one to blame but the people funding her campaign."
Graham, the daughter of former U.S. Senator and Florida Gov. Bob Graham, has outpaced the incumbent Southerland when it comes to fundraising, and observers believe the race will be a close one. The election is Nov. 4, and early voting begins later this month.