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Putnam Talks Candidly About Leadership Resignation

Posted Nov 6, 2008 by Jennifer Leigh

Updated Nov 6, 2008 at 02:25 PM

Bartow’s native son Adam Putnam sat down in his Polk County headquarters today for a one-on-one interview to answer questions about his re-election, his resignation from House leadership and his future in politics.

Here’s a breakdown of part of my interview with the 34-year-old congressman, who solidly won re-election to a fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

On the issue of getting re-elected in a year when other Republican incumbents were getting swept out of office:

JL: What do you think made the difference in your re-election?

AP: You can’t just depend on flooding the airwaves and flooding people’s mailboxes to get it done; and elections like this where you really see anger building with incumbents, this is where it’s not really so much the campaign that’s deciding your fate. It’s really how you’ve performed over the course of your service.

On the issue of resigning his post as the third-ranking congressman in Republican leadership:

JL: What motivated that decision?

AP: Well, it was a lot of things. I came to that decision in August, when we have an opportunity to be home for an extended period of time and spend more time with the family.  As the chief communicator, I was spending 90 percent of my day meeting with the press, meeting with the media, trying to get our message out there in a very difficult climate.  And I enjoyed it, and it was rewarding. But it’s not the reason I ran for Congress. It’s not the reason why we knocked on 20,000 doors. It’s not the reason why you knock on strangers’ doors. It’s not the reasons why you stand in the middle of a busy intersection waving signs.  I wanted to be able to refocus my time and attention, reprioritize my day around solving the problems that we have as Floridians and the problems we have as a nation.

JL: Was any part of this decision a sort of pre-emptive strike because you knew, given the climate right now, that you would certainly face internal challenges to that leadership post?

AP: You know, I actually feel real good about where we would have been in terms of being re-elected as conference chair had I run, and I made the decision in August, when we were actually having our best messaging period of the last two years.

On the issue of Putnam’s future in politics:

JL: So what about Adam Putnam, rumors that Agriculture commissioner may be in your future, possibly Florida governor, even some rumblings that maybe you’ll go for a U.S. Senate seat?

AP: Well, you know, there’s not an open U.S. Senate seat to run for. Mel Martinez is our party’s U.S. senator, and he’s doing a great job. Adam Putnam is focused on what the voters just elected Adam Putnam to do, which is to be their representative in Congress for the 12th Congressional District, and I will add to that the responsibility to be a fighter for Florida.