Ryan Ray
Fresh off an upset victory and a noteworthy first week in office, U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham continues to distinguish herself among freshmen in either party.
Wednesday morning her office announced she’ll serve on the House Armed Services Committee, a plum and electorally useful appointment that she requested. The reason why Speaker John Boehner gave it to her is another question but it probably involved her universal name recognition, her bipartisan juice — and lots of hugs.
Graham’s Congressional District 2 is home to Tyndall Air Force Base in conservative Bay County. Analysts in 2013 predicted she would need 30 percent of the vote there to defeat Tea Party incumbent Steve Southerland; she captured 30.1 percent, about 7 points better than Charlie Crist. She needed every bit of it to eke out her one-point win over Southerland.
The assignment will allow her to burnish her credentials in the west of her Panhandle district, which depends on military installations, but it’s also not a bad launching point, so to speak, for a statewide run.
Many have speculated that a 2016 run for the U.S. Senate is her hottest iron to strike. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s prominent adventures abroad with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just may have taken him a little too far from home base.
