Juicing The GOP Message

Florida's Rep. Adam Putnam, the No. 3 House Republican, isn't shy about his Sunshine State pride. After his alma mater University of Florida Gators won the national football championship, he met with reporters in the Capitol sitting next to an alligator head.

Since then, he's talked politics with reporters over jugs of Florida's Natural orange juice, produced from a farming co-op begun in 1933 that his family is a part of. "We try to sweeten the reporters' dispositions," he jokes, and he thinks it's working. "We've been having a couple of good-message weeks."

By Paul Bedard