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Presidential Hopeful Bob Graham (D) Blasted by Bob Kunst
By Jack Nichols
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Miami Beach, Florida-Bob Kunst, a veteran Miami Beach gay activist, shares a little-known
history with Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida) one that began in 1982 when Kunst received 75,000 votes running against Graham in a bid for the Governor's seat but which blossomed in 1986 when he won nearly 150,000 votes running against Graham in the state's Senate primary.
Kunst's platform at that time called on politicians to face up to the international AIDS crisis. Working with a shoestring budget of $5,000, Kunst doggedly followed an irritated Graham around the state, bemoaning the then-Governor's inattention to "World War III". It was Graham, Kunst reminded voters, who was willing to kill Americans to regulate their morality, spraying poisonous paraquat on marijuana plants.
Today Kunst pledges to remain a thorn in Senator Graham's side. He is making preparations to speak out against him once more, making sure the citizenry is well-aware of Graham's lack of interest not only in gay and lesbian civil rights, but in other significant issues as well.
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 Florida Sen. Bob Graham is running for the Democratic presidential nomination |
Kunst explains that while Graham voted for ENDA is 1996, he is not currently a Senate co-sponsor
of ENDA unlike 80% of the Democratic senators in the last Congress. Although a number of other Democratic officeholders in Florida offered help to activists in Miami-Dade County's battle last year, one initiated by Republican religious fundamentalists who failed to rescind the county's gay-inclusive civil rights ordinance, Senator Graham was nowhere to be seen.
When current and former legislators who voted for the state's ban on gay adoptions were recently asked to publicly "correct" their vote, Senator Graham declined. His HRC rating is 71%, although the other Democratic presidential hopefuls are rated at 100%.
"Pity the American people to have to keep choosing between incompetents in both parties, stealing us all blind," says Kunst, "Is it any wonder why so many Democrats are clueless on how to defeat Bush, when they've got the likes of a Bob Graham Cracker, running for office?"
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Kunst intends to be present on June 8th to celebrate Gay Pride in Philadelphia where he will be distributing thousands of flyers.
In 1978, in the immediate wake of Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign, Kunst is a reminder that "On Channel 6 in Miami, Graham stated that he 'did not support the U.S. Constitution being extended on the basis of sexual preference.'"
In the Miami Herald last week, Kunst noted a story about "Graham's close association with Big Sugar, weakening attempts to clean up the Everglades, pushing that process back ten years, and which could jeopardize $4 billion from the Federal Government on the cleanup project." |
 Activist Bob Kunst |
"Neither," he complains, "did Graham ask for a federal investigation of the 2000 election, where Jeb Bush's sycophants rigged the 537 vote margin resulting in the selection of his brother by the U.S. Supreme Court."
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