Ray C Osborne

Raymond Claiborne Osborne (September 7, 1933 – March 3, 2011), was a Florida Republican Party politician who served as the first Lieutenant Governor of Florida under the state constitution of 1968 and the state's first lieutenant governor since 1889. Appointed by Republican Governor Claude R. Kirk, Jr., Osborne was sworn in on January 7, 1969 for a term that lasted two years.

In 1970, while Kirk sought re-election as governor, Osborne planned to run for the United States Senate in the Republican primary election against U.S. Representative William C. Cramer of St. Petersburg, whose nomination Kirk personally opposed. However, Osborne withdrew from the race when Judge G. Harrold Carswell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who had been repudiated by the U.S. Senate for a seat on the Supreme Court, entered the race for senator. Carswell hoped to confront the senators who blocked his appointment. Ultimately, Cramer was nominated for the Senate but lost the general election to the Democrat Lawton Chiles of Lakeland. Years later, Kirk said that he "should have stuck with Osborne" and not encouraged Carswell to run. Kirk also said that he had not "created" Carswell's candidacy, as many in the media had then depicted.

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Osborne graduated from North Carolina State University in 1955. He then served in the United States Army from 1955 to 1957. Osborne graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1961. Osborne moved with his wife to St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1964 to 1968, Osborne served in the Florida House of Representatives, He then served on the Florida Public Service Commission in 1968. Osborne practiced law for many years in Boca Raton, Florida, until his death in March 2011.