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.

It may be stating the obvious, but health care in Congress could go one of two ways: Up or down.

It would be good if there was a third option: Middle ground in a deal among Republicans, Democrats and the Trump Administration. Unlikely, you say. Yes. But I wish it was possible, so the result would be different than a “just Republican” result that would mimic another bad result, the “just Democrat” approval of the original ObamaCare.

Two of my favorite columnists in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger and Peggy Noonan, dealt with the subject in different ways this week.

Henninger contended that Republicans should double down and make good on their campaign promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare, despite growing opposition. If they don’t prevail, he wrote, their majority will be short-lived.

Noonan, in a different voice, called on President Donald Trump to do something many of us feel he would not be able to do, which is to negotiate with Democrats so we are not left with another ObamaCare debacle.

Here, in a bit of an extended way, is how each columnist characterized their contentions:

Henninger: “The American people didn’t endure and survive the 2016 presidential election for this. The public that voted Donald Trump into the White House will drive Republicans into a deserved wilderness if they go back on the only promise anyone can remember them making the past six years.

“The day the Republicans clutch on this reform, there will be six-column headlines across the Washington Post and the New York Times: ‘Trump Abandons Promises on Health Care.’

“It will be a fast ride downhill from there. That is because the health-care reform bill is linked inextricably to the politics of tax reform, the second pillar of the Trump legislative agenda.

“If this bill fails, there is only one Plan B. It will be a single-payer system enacted after 2020 with votes from what’s left of the Republican party after — Donald Trump is right about this — they get wiped out in 2018 and lose the presidency two years later. After blowing it on ObamaCare, why would anyone vote for them again?”

Noonan: “Why aren’t we talking about growing and building and knocking down barriers? Why aren’t we talking about jobs and a boom and reforming regulation and taxes so people can build and invest?

“Is cutting the absolute No. 1 priority right now? In a country that is, in Pope Francis’ famous characterization of the modern world, ‘a field hospital after battle’?, is that what the Republican party wants to lead with? Why isn’t the priority unleashing, getting past limits, pushing toward dynamism and expansion?

“All these old arguments—we have to have them now? Why? Because it’s important for a party to prove it doesn’t know what time it is?

“How about a little prudence and patience? The priorities should be jobs, growth, social cohesion and an atmosphere, in Washington, of constructiveness. We don’t need any new culture wars — we’ve got enough, thanks! Is the worst thing that could happen in the world right now that a kid from New Jersey can come into Manhattan and see an off-Broadway show seeded with a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts? No, that’s not the worst thing that could happen!

“The worst that could happen is that Congress is so exhausted as an institution, everyone’s ideologies so played out, that they’re all just playing a part, going through the motions, mindlessly replicating past battles in hope of some new reward.

“The president should confound expectations, pivot, and turn to the Democrats for a bi-partisan deal (on health care).

“Here is the tradition. If you are Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 and you want to create Social Security—an act that affects Americans very personally—you get the other party in on it. You need them co-owning it, invested in it. You want the American people saying, ‘Congress did this,’ not ‘the Democrats did this,’ because if they say the latter the reform will always divide. FDR got 81 Republicans to vote for it in the House, and 284 Democrats. The same with Medicare in 1965: Lyndon Johnson did all he could to get the GOP on board. A majority of House Republicans supported it.

“Barack Obama, full of himself after his 2008 victory and surrounded by triumphalist House Democrats, ignored the teaching of history and passed ObamaCare without a single Republican vote. The Democrats would get all the credit. In time they got all the blame. Republicans had no incentive to bail them out.

“But the health-care system, as Ohio Gov. John Kasich has observed, is crucial. The Democrats must be in on the process to achieve ‘true and lasting reform.’”

A third option – compromise? Most of us would bet that it won’t happen. But, I believe it should so, here in America, we can prove that democracy works again for the benefit of all of us.