While Dr Graham has been an SDLP member for the past decade, he has encountered difficulties finding eligible party members to support his bid in line with party rules.
He told the Mourne Observer he was not in a position to comment publicly on the matter while the selection process was ongoing.
But it is understood he is not giving up the fight and is hoping to find the necessary backers to ensure delegates at the convention on 21 March have a choice of candidates.
“I think Margaret Ritchie would not be satisfied if she stood in a convention where potential candidates or opponents were excluded on technicalities,” he said.
The Newcastle resident accepts he is a rank outsider in the race to replace Mr McGrady as the SDLP candidate at the next Westminster election.
“I’m not a fantasist,” he said.
But he insists he wants to stand to enable the party to look at what he terms “hard issues.”
And he doesn’t believe there is anything disloyal about pitting himself against the new party leader.
“Social democracy describes me,” he said. “While I am loyal to the SDLP I would say it is good for the party and good for the body politic to have opposition in the race.”
Dr Graham was born and raised in America. The Harvard graduate worked in counter-intelligence for the US government and spent 25 years as an attorney in Massachusetts before becoming a Christian minister.
He is no stranger to the world of politics either, having worked for the Democratic Party in the hothouse atmosphere of Washington.
He came to Northern Ireland in the mid 1990s, spending three years as a curate in Banbridge, and in more recent years he was priest-in-charge at St Paul’s Church in Castlewellan.
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