Nut Campaign Tailor-Made for D.C.

Ads have popped up on the Metro and on a billboard on New York Avenue for a brand of pistachios called Everybody's Nuts. The slogan reads: "The second biggest nut in D.C."

Which raises the question: Who's the biggest nut in D.C.?

"Hmmmmm," William Robertson, 33, said after I put the question to him on the platform at the Brookland Metro station recently. " Rumsfeld is gone, so I can't pick him. That's a good question. That's a real good question. Hmm. Not Karl Rove. It's on the tip of my tongue . . ."

We'll come back to William later. In the meantime, let's ask some other people.

" Bush," said Yesenia Nuñez, an 18-year-old nursing student at Catholic University. "That's the first thing that popped into my mind."

"Obviously, George W. Bush," said Christine Foster, 40, of Hyattsville, who was waiting for a train at Judiciary Square.

"The one that lives in the White House," said Pat Clifton, 60, of Tannersville, Pa. (I don't think Pat meant Barney the Scottish terrier.)

"Leave it to your imagination," said Cori Duvall, 30, of Southeast Washington. "But that's what's funny about it, because you know automatically." In other words, it's Bush. Or is it?

" Nancy Pelosi," hissed a woman from Annapolis named Deborah.

"Criminal defenders," said Fairfax's Oscar Ilagan, 54. "They're [and here he made the universal twirling-finger-pointed-at-ear motion that signifies someone who's nuts]."

"That's pretty strange. I have no idea," said Deborah Coram, 54, of Ellicott City. "I guess it's up to everybody's imagination. I might even consider myself some days."

Everybody's Nuts is a new "super premium" line of pistachios, grown -- where else? -- in California. The ad campaign has been tailored to 10 markets, said Sonya Grigoruk, public relations representative for Paramount Farms, the country's largest pistachio grower and the force behind the brand. In Los Angeles, the ads read, "Just what L.A. needs, more nuts"; in Denver, "At this altitude Everybody's Nuts."