Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Talk Politics?

Bob Graham brought a little Margaritaville to Cambridge last month.

Jimmy Buffett, a long-time friend of the former senator, came to Graham’s IOP study group to speak about celebrities in politics.

In the past, Graham and Buffett have dressed as each other for fundraising events. They are also tied in more institutional ways. In 1981, then-Florida Governor Graham appointed Buffett to be director of a statewide “Save the Manatees” program. Buffett returned the favor by featuring the governor in his music video “Who’s the Blonde Stranger?”

True to form, the star arrived in Littauer wearing corduroy cargo pants, a Polo shirt, and boating shoes, said students who attended the off-the-record study group. In his speech, he likened an “egocentric band”—with a lead singer who cares only about himself—to an authoritarian regime, the students said.

The study group ended on an amusing but sour note when a Parrot Head from the audience requested that Buffett play a song. When Buffett tried to tune the fan’s child-sized guitar, one of the strings snapped.

“We were all sad,” says Daren S. Stanaway ’07. “He said if he’d known that we wanted him to play, he would have brought his guitar with him.”

Graham could not be reached for comment last week.