PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Washington Post writer David Ignatius wrote an interesting column the other day in which he expressed thanks for Donald Trump’s insincerity, which he called “bait and switch.”

To bait Americans on the campaign trail, Trump accused absolutely everybody of being less wonderful than he himself, “The Donald.” Then, after his election, he switched many of his off-the wall-campaign promises.

Here’s the way Ignatius described the changes:

“Perhaps we should be thankful this week for Donald Trump’s insincerity. In a breathtaking fortnight of flip-flopping, he has reversed many of his most reckless and damaging campaign positions.

“The new Trump professes sympathy for people and ideas he disdained during the ‘vicious’ campaign. He now admires President Obama, doesn’t want to harm (let alone lock up) Hillary Clinton, is waffling on climate change, and thinks waterboarding might not work. Maybe he’ll even decide that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a great trade deal.”

If this means that Trump actually wants to get about the business of healing the great divides in America, good. He’ll have a lot more work to do and there is no doubt that he won’t be able to convince many Americans of his better self, given the way he conducted himself on the campaign trail.

Think back to when Barack Obama came into office about eight years ago. He promised to lead a bi-partisan America. He did not. He actually pushed bi-partisanship to the side to exert his own will as chief executive through regulations that circumvented Congress.

Many of his supporters would say he did so because of a recalcitrant Congress that wouldn’t do his bidding.

One test of any president is the ability to convince those in Congress – as well as the American people – of the worth of his ideas. If that means compromise with Congress, so be it because the best ideas often are found in the middle anyway and not on either extreme.

Trump’s election was one of the most divisive in American history. Here’s hoping his presidency will work to heal the divisions. Or, to use the Ignatius analogy, the Trump presidency actually will practice bait and switch bait from over-wrought campaign rhetoric to actual governing positions.