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'That's Not Why I Knocked On 20,000 Doors'

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 16, 2008

It's a rare day in Washington when a lawmaker voluntarily relinquishes power to his party's faithful. But that is what Bartow congressman Adam Putnam has done. He has given up his third-ranking position as conference chairman, a post that gave him national exposure and raised his stature as a voice for the future of the party and conservatism.

I'm sorry to see this happen. As conference chairman, it was his job to poke holes in the Democratic agenda, and he was good at it, even if sometimes in the highly partisan way required by his position.

But whatever his critics charge, few would deny he is a smart, reasonable guy capable of dissecting complicated issues and coming up with ways to deal with the serious problems this country faces. Even Democrats such as Tampa's Kathy Castor say they have a good working relationship with Putnam. His party, but more importantly his country, needs people like him to explain and deal with the serious problems we face today and in the near future.

Nevertheless, Putnam has made up his mind, and I understand his decision. As he said in a recent meeting with the editorial board, it's one thing to say goodbye to your family during the week to go to Washington with the power to try to save the world. But it's another to kiss them goodbye when he knows he doesn't have the votes to accomplish all he wants.

I'm sure some will say Putnam could read the writing on the wall. After his party's losses this month, he may have been banished to the hinterlands for failing to make progress in a difficult political year. But Putnam says he wants to put more time into working for his constituency here rather than in his party. And maybe that will be good for each of us.

It could be, too, that with the Republicans' near-term hopes for renewed power in Washington dashed, he's looking toward a future in state government. He's coy about it, but he doesn't overrule a run for agricultural commissioner in two years when Charles Bronson is term-limited. That would give him an important statewide office and put him on Florida's Cabinet. Then, four years later, with Charlie Crist's second term as governor nearing an end or a Democrat such as Florida's Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink finishing her first term, he could have a chance for the governorship. That's speculation, but it's not unreasonable.

Putnam understands what has happened to his party and he has ideas about how to help the country and particularly this area. Below are some of the observations he shared with the editorial board.

When did you know the outcome of this election?

A defining moment for me was when at some point McCain went on and said, "I don't do the Internet or e-mail." I thought, "Way to reach out to the 21st century."

In an era when the youth vote is more energized than ever, and people are looking for new solutions to old problems, here's a guy running to be president of the United States and on one hand has a line in a speech about keeping America competitive and building a world-class economy and on the other hand say I don't even get on the Internet or do e-mail. To me that was the George H.W. Bush moment of not knowing what a gallon of milk cost, never having seen a grocery scanner. I mean that's way out of touch.

How are you feeling right now about the election?

From the big picture standpoint I feel privileged to be a witness to history even though I was a McCain supporter. ...Barack Obama's challenge will be to maintain expectations because he has put together such a diverse coalition of folks who supported his candidacy for, in many cases, competing reasons. When he has to start governing, he will have a very difficult time maintaining that coalition and managing the expectations of people.

What is the future of the Republican Party and why are you leaving leadership?

Washington is broken, and I've said this many times, even when I was in leadership. If both parties don't figure out the things that they can work together and solve, and then the things that are worth having a national debate over, if we can't sort that out, voters are going to put a pox on both houses and move onto something different... At some point the campaign has to end and work has to be done. That hasn't happened for some time.

Why were you unable to make a difference in how Washington works?

Well, No. 1 it takes more than one guy doing it.

Oddly enough, a guy that I have very little in common with and I ended up working together quite frequently - Rahm Emanuel and I created a series of discussions around the country. We felt we needed to get lawmakers out of D.C. and around the country and let the people see No. 1 that there are legitimate differences of opinion because a lot of people frankly don't recognize that. If you only watch Keith Olbermann all day or if you only watch Bill O'Reilly all day or listen to Rush (Limbaugh) or (Sean) Hannity, you've never really heard a sincere, passionate argument for the other side, you've just kind of heard all the arguments against it. Half the battle is understanding where someone else is coming from and then sorting through which of their ideas you could accept and which ones are totally unacceptable to you or your business or industry.

Is it expected when you have a loss like this that you step aside as a leader?

I happen to think that if your team is not performing well, it's probably important to make some changes. It's up to the team to make decisions about who they want to switch out. We're Republicans. We talk about measuring performance, and I have no problem with that standard. How do we get to the point where we are really debating the issues and not just debating ways to keep the other guy from getting credit for something?

My frustration began when we were still in the majority and I was on the Rules Committee. There were debates that we shut down or limited or stopped that were really insignificant to the bigger scheme of things. It is unnecessary how much the majority party, us and now them, have restricted debate. Time spent in debate on the floor, I think, builds a kind of trust across the aisle, forces people to defend their ideas and if their ideas can't withstand public scrutiny, then they're probably not good public policy.

So why are you stepping down?

Being the chief spokesman, your job is to highlight the differences every day. You're out there trying to gather some kind of press attention for what House Republicans believe in, what House Republicans are trying to do. In the environment we've had the last two years probably the only way to do that is to sort of highlight the differences between what they would like to do and what we would like to do. If you're aggressive at that, active at that, it's really no surprise that it makes it pretty tough to then come back to the same people who you were just criticizing and say, 'Hey, let's work together on this.'

As enjoyable as it is to go toe-to-toe with someone on 'Hard Ball,' ... that's not why I knocked on 20,000 doors to go to Congress. Solving problems is. I have done my tour of duty in that role and enjoyed it most of the time, but I think it's time to move on and try to accomplish other things.

Jeff Stidham is an editorial writer for The Tampa Tribune.

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