FOLLOW US

What we see is a pathetic attempt to pander to both sides of an issue. Putnam seems to be trying to oppose medical marijuana and support it at the same time by hiding behind the Constitution for the need to do it, but not saying how to do it appropriately or pushing to allow market access for vendors or customers. Instead, Putnam took the legislature to task just like he did for its K-12 education legislation without offering any alternative solutions. As noted in prior posts, “Rip Van Putman” seems to have awakened with a renewed thirst for the Governor’s Mansion, but he still has no ideas and no solutions to Florida’s challenges.

Considering Putnam more broadly, it is simply stunning at how little this man has accomplished in his nearly three decades of elected service - quick, name one piece of signature legislation or public policy for which he is known? For a man who has been on the team, well-liked, but seems to have lacked any meaningful success, it is also stunning to see how willing he is to criticize others “in the arena” who are actually doing the fighting on some tough policy issues. To believe Putnam has had a successful political career would require one to measure it more by the friends he has made than the difference he has affected.

Putnam has perfected the art of doing nothing to offend anyone and saying just enough to get by. His is a gutless approach to governing, yet it is what Floridians should by now, come to expect from Adam Putnam. He claims to be a conservative while voting for the largest expansion of government in American history as a Congressman. He criticizes the Legislature for bad education policy but has no ideas of his own to improve things and does nothing, even as an elected member of the State Cabinet, to alter the policy during the legislative session.

Above all else, the detail that is most troubling about Adam Putnam’s bad week is the leak or hack of sensitive personal information about Floridians who hold concealed carry permits. Following the last reshaping of the Florida Cabinet 25 years ago that shrank the size of the elected Cabinet, the Legislature peeled off a few tasks from other agencies and gave them to Putnam in an attempt to make the Agriculture Commissioner relevant. Other than watch the sad decline of the significance of agriculture in Florida, Putnam has very few tasks or responsibilities to oversee. However, for many, the single most important job of the Agriculture Commissioner is to timely process and protect records relating to the Concealed Carry program. By a 2006 state law, this information must be maintained as confidential. Protecting that data is Adam Putnam’s job.