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.

In a post earlier this week, I commended President Trump and his Administration for preparing for the Harvey debacle and showing up to support Texans.

I suggested that it was a good stroke for Trump to show up personally, but to avoid the hardest-hit areas so his own presence would not make the work of first responders more difficult.

Since my post, I have read a number of pieces which faulted Trump, while he was in Texas, for talking only about responders and the government apparatus of responding rather than expressing sympathy for individual citizens hit hard by the tragedy.

At one point, in a campaign-style moment, he even marveled at the size of the crowed that showed up to see him.

There is perhaps a point in all of this because Trump is never good at expressing sympathy for others, perhaps an illustration of the Trump tendency to focus on himself as the most important person in any room or public space.

But, still, I think Trump deserves credit for his early response to this natural disaster, the first one in his Administration. Showing up mattered a lot, even if he didn’t always say just the right things.

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.

The Wall Street Journal: “We want to do it better than ever before,” Mr. Trump said about the relief efforts in Houston. “We want to be looked at in five years, 10 years from now, as this is the way to do it.” Mr. Trump made his remarks from an impromptu meeting room inside a firehouse in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Comment: At first blush at least, Donald Trump earned positive points for his response to the hurricane Harvey tragedy in Texas.

For one thing, “his” agencies, starting with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, appeared to respond in a way that illustrated coordination with local authorizes on the ground in flood-ravaged Texas.

For another, Trump himself showed up in Texas, but was careful, on his first trip, to avoid going to the worst hit areas so as not to aggravate conditions for rescue workers.

One critic, Ari Fleischer, press secretary for former President George Bush, thought Trump did not express true sympathy, but, to me, the criticism came across as hollow as Trump tried to buoy the spirit of those in the hard-hit area.

Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ):  “Mr. Trump frequently says things like ‘We are moving very quickly’ (referring to health care, on Feb. 27), ‘We are going to have tax reform at some point very soon’ (April 12), and that his administration’s infrastructure plan will ‘take off like a rocket ship.’

“Mr. Trump also often plays down the difficulty of legislating, as when he declared in March that repealing and replacing ObamaCare would be ‘such an easy one,’ and told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo in April that tax reform ‘will be easier than health care.’

“Blaming others may be cathartic for Mr. Trump, but it weakens the presidency and inhibits his agenda. Republicans responded to the president’s criticism with a flurry of statements in the Senate leader’s support. Legislators never like it when a chief executive—even of their own party—presumes to dictate who presides in their chambers.

Comment: Mr. Trump probably is not wise to take on those who should be his Republican colleagues in Congress. After all, he’ll need them as everyone faces the prospect of the need to increase the debt ceiling, as well as move forward on tax reform.

But Trump is not one to deal with the unavoidable complexity of legislation. He says what he thinks and then wants Congress to act immediately in line with his sentiments.

WSJ Editorial:  “Mr. Trump’s ego won’t allow him to concede error and he broods over criticism until he ends up hurting himself, as he showed again Tuesday by re-litigating his response to the Charlottesville violence. This is how he has achieved a 34 per cent approval rating, as even allies flee and his presidency shrinks in on itself.”

Comment: Trump’s huge ego often gets in the way of administrative achievements or prods him to believe that he has been hurt by the criticism and thus must respond in kind, if not over-the-top. Thin skin won’t work for a president.

New York Times: “Alongside a huge local, state and federal disaster response was an equally giant volunteer rescue effort that operated with little official guidance. State troopers referred requests for boats in some cases to the civilians. Burly volunteers traded information and resources with deputies and officers. At the Beltway 8 off-ramp that served as a boat ramp, recreational boats with painted images of Texas flags and scantily clad women on the sides shared the waters with police vessels. It was hard to tell, in the darkness, who was being paid to be there and who was not. Similar relief efforts have played a major role in scores of other natural disasters, but the scale of the one unfolding in Houston post-Harvey has involved hundreds of volunteers — perhaps thousands.”

Comment: It’s appropriate to close this post with this well-written summary of heroic volunteer efforts to help those in trouble in Texas. No doubt, once the full brunt of Harvey has been calculated, we’ll hear more about selfless rescue efforts.

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.

[This is at least a partial repeat of what I wrote a year or so ago. But the points bear repeating.]

Lobbying is an often-misunderstood vocation.

When many hear the word, they think of agents running around with bags of money to buy results. But, most of the time, that is not true.

Most of the time, lobbyists play their trade in at least a workmanlike fashion to achieve results for their clients.

When I began my career as a lobbyist, I had to explain to my mother what I did for a living. I resorted to two examples, hoping that one of them would make sense to her.

The first was that I was like an attorney. I had a client. That client paid me to represent its interests. My courtroom was the Capitol building, sometimes in a hearing room, sometimes in an office, sometimes in a hallway. Or, for me, sometimes at a lunch or on a golf course.

Anywhere where I could make an impression on a person who held public office.

My second example referred to a trader on a busy commodity-trading floor. Figuratively, I had to yell to get attention to make a sale. The example was meant to illustrate that I had to compete for time and attention.

A final example is one I have used more recently. It was that of a salesperson. As a lobbyist, I was not selling cars, houses, furniture or some other identifiable commodity. I was selling ideas.

The question was whether the buyer – a legislator, a member of Congress, a government agency official – would make a decision to buy what I was selling.

But, beyond these illustrations of what a lobbyist is, it is important to list credentials that make a good lobbyist. Here are several.

1.  A PERSONAL COMMITMENT:  A “YOUR WORD IS YOUR BOND” ETHIC

There is no more critical trait than this one. At a Wall Street Journal CEO Forum, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie put it this way:  “No one in this city (Washington, D.C.) talks to each other anymore.  Or, if they do, they don’t speak to each civilly.  They don’t develop relationships.  They won’t develop trust between each other.”

Governor Christie – admittedly he had his own credibility problems — could have added that, when officials talk, they don’t believe what each other says because there is no “your word is your bond” ethic.

If you say something, mean it. Stick by it.  If you have to change your perspective, alert all those to whom you previously spoke that you’ve had to change.  That, alone, will enhance your credibility.

2.  A PERSONAL STYLE:  PERSEVERANCE

Over my 40+ years at the State Capitol in Salem, I saw that those who arrived early, remained active during the day and stayed late often got things done.  In the sometimes-awkward nature of lobbying, finding legislators early and late often translated to an important minute or two – a minute or two to make a positive impression on behalf of a client.

Because lobbying is the business of making a series of positive impressions, finding time to make the first one is critical. Then, the others follow – early, mid-day or late.

3.  A PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENT:  CLIENT EXPERTISE INVOKES LOBBYING

In the lobbying business, I used to say that it didn’t matter what I thought or whether I agreed with a client. What mattered was what the client thought.

I had the good fortune to represent clients over the years with whom I generally agreed. Moreover, they often allowed me to react to their point of view, caring about what I thought as I prepared to carry their views to the Capitol.

I also was fond of saying that, with regard to a client’s interests, I was “an inch deep and a mile wide,” while the client was a mile deep in its understanding of its issues.

The point?  It is that a client’s perspectives, words and deeds are critical to representing that client’s interests, more critical than a lobbyist’s perspectives, words and deeds.  What a client wants or does not want from the legislative process should dictate what the lobbyist wants or does not want.

My approach was, first, to listen carefully to a client’s perspective, then apply my experience — how to get things done in a public policy environment — honed over my years in the process.

If a client wanted just a message carrier, I wasn’t particularly interested, as immodest as that sounds. I wanted to work with client to hone the message, then use the client’s expertise to achieve results.

4.  A COMMITMENT TO ACHIEVING SOLID ENDS:  FIND THE SMART MIDDLE

Getting back to the Wall Street Journal’s report of what Governor Christie said at the CEO forum, he issued a clear call for the benefits of compromise, which, after all, is the definition of politics…the art of compromise.

“When I’ve developed relationships with Democratic legislators (in New Jersey), it means you have to compromise at times; you don’t walk away with everything you want.  But, man, if I walk away with 70 per cent of my agenda, New Jersey’s 70 per cent better than it would have been otherwise.”

Well, you could quarrel with elements of that quote, but the point is clear:  Finding the smart middle is better than imposing an idea from either the right or left extremes.

Look no farther these days than the federal “Affordable Care Act,” which doesn’t appear to be so affordable.  It was imposed without any attempt to find the middle; only Democrats in Congress voted for President Obama’s proposal. Now, rather than learn lessons from that several-years ago debacle, Republican leaders in Congress tried to impose their will without working with Democrats.

The result? Health care policy in place today does not work as well as it could if reasonable persons from both sides were involved in finding the smart middle.

As a lobbyist, my goal was to get clients, first, to explain what they wanted and why, and, second, to be open to finding the smart middle.  That’s the way to get things done — in Salem or in Washington, D.C.

The issue is not winning or losing. It is finding middle ground.

What it takes to be an effective lobbyist relies, I contend, on the four qualities outlined above. It also takes a willingness to work with others to achieve results, for nothing ever happens in the lobbying world unless it revolves around a team.

For me, helping legislators draft good law was a purposeful pursuit.

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.

A recent column in the Washington Post made a lot of sense to me. The writer compared the theatrical actions of one Donald Trump to the World Wrestling Federation (WWE), long one of the best examples of appealing to an often gullible public (though, not me, I hasten to add).

Referring to the make-believe world of “professional” wrestling, the columnist, David Drehle, wrote: “It was a world that included one Donald Trump, the Ravishing Rick Rude of politics. Too little attention has been paid to Trump’s wrestling background, which was sufficiently broad that he reached the hall of fame a full four years ahead of Rude.”

The reference to Rude was to a character in the Wrestling Federation who made its own Hall of Fame.

More from the columnist: “Trump was among the first self-promoters to hitch a ride on impresario Vince McMahon’s WWE juggernaut. He sponsored two of McMahon’s early WrestleMania extravaganzas back in the Golden Age, steering them to the Historic Atlantic City Convention Hall and promoting them through his Trump casinos.

“But the peak of Trump’s career came in 2007, when he was written into the script of WrestleMania 23 as one-half of the Battle of the Billionaires, facing off against McMahon. Before a crowd of 80,000 at Detroit’s Ford Field, with a million more watching on pay-per-view, Trump played his role to the hilt, clotheslining McMahon and pretending to pummel him on the floor before shaving the promoter’s head as the fruit of victory.”

It is not an exaggeration to contend that the Trump presidency is right out of a WWE script. His brawling news conferences, his beefs with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and journalist Mika Brzezinski, the who’s-up-who’s-down chaos inside his White House, all bear the imprint of a man schooled on the melodramatic storylines of pro wrestling.

Here’s more:

• Trump is all show and little, if any, substance.
• Trump is all act, as if on a WWE stage.
• Trump doesn’t care whom he offends; in fact, offending appears to be the goal.
• To Trump, it’s all about HIS GOOD and EVERYONE ELSE’S EVIL.

Trump scripted his campaign as a series of professional-wrestling scenarios, complete with menacing foreigners, un-clever nicknames and plenty of trash talk. When the show got him elected, he doubled down, taunting world leaders and journalists alike.

You might say all politicians tell stories of conflict. But with Trump, it’s relentless. He takes us from bout to bout — Trump against China, Trump against Comey, Trump against Kim, Trump against Fake News — with a head-spinning undercard of Jared against Bannon and Spicy Spicer against The Mooch. Every policy choice, every personnel decision, every setback can be fodder for the next day’s script.

My question: Can we change the channel?

Indeed, pro-wrestling ratings have been dropping for years. Perhaps support for Trump, the bad actor on a stage, will drop, too. One can only hope.

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.

If you read Daniel Henninger’s most recent column, excerpts of which are reprinted below, you may be able to guess that Henninger, deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, is one of my favorite columnists writing today.

His latest contention: America’s political apparatus is steadily disconnecting from reality.

Politics is no longer about what elected officials can do to benefit the public or their own constituents. Nor is it about solving pressing societal problems.  Rather, it has become a series of end-game strategies where one sides seeks to embarrass the other. The motive is just that – embarrass the other side. Plus, the effect if this is aggravated because politicians are always running for office, not focusing on governing.

For me, all of this is a sea change from when I started as a lobbyist more than 25 years ago.  Back then, the objective of elected officials was to do a good job of doing the public’s business.

Here are excerpts from Henninger’s recent column: “Street politics has become the politics du jour. Groups form constantly in the street to chant slogans. America’s campuses live amid perpetual protest.”

To Henninger, the phenomenon that enables politics without purpose is the Internet. It is the organizing tool for fanatics on the right and left, including the nut-ball, Alex Fields, Jr., who drove into the crowd in Charlottesville, killing one person who won’t be the last casualty.

Henninger adds: “Fields makes me think of the lone-wolf jihadists here and in Europe who explode out of the general population in a homicidal rage. These are people who sit endlessly in front of a computer screen, brainwashing themselves with online propaganda until they snap to make a ‘political statement.’

“The Internet—websites, social media, message boards—is elevating political paranoia and delegitimizing normal politics.”

Henninger is right, but I also like what a letter to the editor writer said in the Wall Street Journal this week. “The reason these groups (white supremacists, etc.) need to bus people in from other states is because most of us wouldn’t waste our time participating.”

Kudos to the writer. I hope that the politics of division and hate doesn’t become the norm. Leave the fringes to those who like fringes as they try to grab headlines.

It is up to us, as voters, to elect persons who will return to what should be the main objective of politics – to find the smart middle on the issues that face us.

Rarely is the solution to any pressing problem found at the extremes. So, I say, don’t ignore Charlottesville or other right and left extremes, but learn from them and seek a more reasonable and reasoned future.

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.

Those who, like me, appreciate order and discipline rather than chaos in the White House were pleased a couple weeks ago when former General John Kelly was named White House chief of staff.

In a piece in the Wall Street Journal, this was an early take on Kelly’s arrival to replace Reince Priebus:

“In the Oval Office, a small group of senior officials talked with President Donald Trump about plans to take on Beijing over intellectual-property theft. When a side debate broke out between two top aides, the new White House chief of staff ordered the pair out of the room.

“Return, John Kelly told them, once your differences are resolved, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

“The move kept the meeting on track. It also signaled to top staff that Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general, planned to bring new order and discipline to a West Wing that has been riven for six months with division and disorganization.”

A minor achievement you might say, but as I read this early example of Kelly’s discipline, I recalled my own experience in Oregon Governor Vic Atiyeh’s office now more than 30 years ago.

The chief of staff then was Gerry Thompson, who had joined the Atiyeh office when the governor called on her to take a leave from her post as a vice president at Blue Cross. The office had not been in a state of chaos when she arrived and, thus, it was not like Kelly’s arrival at the White House.

But Gerry did continue a record of order and discipline in the state’s top political office.

• She was able to strike the often delicate balance between two worthy objectives – (a) to give her direct reports room to offer suggestions about how to operate and what decisions to make, and (b) to assure that the staff spoke with one voice after airing differences. In other words, she did routinely what Kelly did in the example above: She avoided cases when the staff would argue about approaches when they needed to display agreement.
• After differences had been aired and agreements reached, she expected executive staff members to portray that agreement. In other words, get behind the objective for the good of “the team.”
• She gave all of us in key roles (mine was as the governor’s press secretary) access to the governor himself. We weren’t isolated from him. We had the chance – a great opportunity as I reflect back on the style of the last Republican governor in Oregon – to talk with him, give him our views and listen to his seasoned perspectives.
• When a decision had been reached by Gerry or by the governor himself, our obligation as staff was to get on board and reflect the agreement.
• Like the governor himself, Gerry’s commitment was to doing good work and not doing good work in order to get credit for it.

As we watch goings-on in Washington, D.C, it will be interesting to see whether the Kelly approach to order and discipline will prevail for more than just a couple weeks. It is one thing to expect a sense of order from those staff who report to him – and every top staff member in the White House does. It will be quite another to see if he can exert proper control and discipline on the president himself.

This week’s experience – Trump going off message in a press conference that was supposed to be dealing with infrastructure issues and descending again into rhetoric that seemed to condone the activities of white supremacists – was another indication that Kelly faces a tall order. In fact, controlling the president and getting him on message may never occur.

Gerry Thompson in Oregon did not face that same challenge when she was chief of staff to Governor Atiyeh. She worked for a governor who gave a lot to the state he loved. And she gave a lot in her role and expected a lot from her staff.

Reflecting back, it very purposeful to work hard for a governor who practiced a “what you see is what you get” kind of approach to doing the public’s business. Gerry mimicked his approach and it was a joy to work for her, as well.

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.

One of the old sayings dating back to my time as a state agency manager was this: “Your subordinates can make professional life difficult for you.”

The saying was meant to indicate that those who worked for you could make mistakes and you, as an agency leader, might have to step up to the plate to take responsibility. This would be true even if the mistakes were well-intentioned ones, a status the media often fails to recognize.

Plus, in the case of mistakes, your opponents, including legislators, could pile on to make your professional life even more difficult. The risk in a state agency is that mistakes – a natural part of work life – end up clouding any organization’s accomplishments.

Well, the rationale behind that saying came true last week as one of my good friends, Lynne Saxton, lost her job as director of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) after a public relations controversy engulfed her, a controversy that could be attributed to mistakes made by staff.

Even as she stays in her job through the end of the month – a wholly professional act on her part — she deserves great credit for a number of accomplishments at OHA, not just the bad news of a final problem.

When she took over the agency a couple years ago, she did so at the request of then-governor John Kitzhaber. It was not long before Kitzhaber gave up the state’s top political job after too many questions were raised about alleged conflict of interest issues related to Kitzhaber and his significant other, Cylvia Hayes, who conducted herself as a sort-of “first lady” of Oregon.

Lynne managed to survive the change to the administration of Secretary of State Kate Brown who moved in behind Kitzhaber as governor and, in fact, after Brown became governor, Lynne was confirmed by the State Senate for the top job at OHA.

Her intention was to manage the agency in a way to gain credibility for an operation that had suffered in the years before her elevation to the director job. A key part of her task was to exercise proper discretion over Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for low-income citizens, which, under ObamaCare, was consuming more and more of available state resources.

It was a tall order because her predecessor at the agency had tended to focus most of his time on personal negotiations with Oregon legislators over the future of the state’s health care programs. He spent far more time at the Capitol than in his office three blocks north on the Capitol Mall.

That left administration at the agency in a state of flux, so Lynne came in with an intention to set the management record straight. And that’s what she did.

Here’s a partial record of accomplishments:

• Gained federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) approval for care reimbursement rates for Oregon’s list of Coordinated Care Organizations, rates where approval was at risk for 2015.
• Cleaned up Medicaid eligibility issues for a program that now serves more than one million Oregonians. [This was one of the controversial issues that arose during Lynne’s tenure, but it is a very complicated one. As Medicaid applications are reviewed, if an individual qualifies, then Medicaid benefits must be granted. Then, later, under further investigation, it may turn out that the recipient was not qualified. Lynne and her staff remain busy verifying the eligibility records.]
• Provided information that enabled the legislature to retain a tax on large Oregon hospitals, proceeds that would, in turn, garner federal matching funds under Medicaid. Then, the all of the state and federal money would be available to fund continuing Medicaid benefits for thousands of low-income citizens in Oregon.
• Renewed another five-year waiver from CMS, which will enable the State of Oregon to maintain health care programs and continue imposing appropriate cost control strategies.
• Invested in coordination of care programs for Oregon’s nine Native American tribes.
• Restructured agency administrative systems and put in place a performance management system, key steps to assure legislators and stakeholders that strong management was occurring in an agency where, under previous leaders, reports, including financial analyses, lacked credibility.

Even with all of these accomplishments, Lynne took responsibility for the public relations mistakes her staff made and, if a price was to be paid, she said she would pay it.

She did – resignation from her job. It was a statesmanlike act on her part.

I have known Lynne for a number of years and represented her in Salem when she was head of Youth Villages, a notable and successful provider of services for at-risk children and youth. Lynne always was gracious, approachable and committed to achieving results for the benefit of the children and families she served. It was a pleasure for me to be associated with her and to benefit from my relationship with her more than she benefited from working with me.

At the Oregon Health Authority, Lynne did excellent work in a tough job and everyone should recognize her accomplishments – she would call them “results” – even as leaves and heads toward a well-earned retirement.

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.

If you are driving to Southern California and then back to Oregon, you have a lot of time to think, even as you try to drive safely with, on occasion at least, a lot of traffic.

With so much time, your thoughts go in unusual directions. Here are just a few examples of what occurred to me on this long, 16-hour trip behind the wheel.

WHAT IS LOGISTICS?

Remember when trucks hauling stuff was called just that – hauling stuff.

Then, the words change to transport or transportation. And, now, the word has changed again. It’s called “logistics.”

Many of the hundreds of sixteen-wheelers we saw on the trip south and north have the word “logistics” written on their sides, thus advertising the credentials of their companies.

I guess logistics is a bigger word, implying how the dictionary defines the word – “the planning, implementation and coordination of the details of a business or other operation.”

So, now you know – logistics is more than hauling stuff.

SPEAKING OF BIG RIGS ON THE HIGHWAY

Ever wonder why many of those rigs stop on entrances or exits to rest areas rather than in the rest areas themselves?

I do.

So, I asked a question on the Internet and found that the answer may be that the drivers are stopped to sleep at least for a bit of time. But, if that is true, why not stop in the rest areas themselves?

I don’t know and also have never found the right opportunity to ask a driver this question. So, inquiring minds want to know.

DEALING WITH 120 DEGREE HEAT

In the Palm Springs area, the highest temperature we experienced was 120 degrees. Most days on this trip, the temperature hovered around 115.

So, the question is, how do folks down there tolerate that kind of heat?

Well, one answer is that they go outside in the early morning hours, then retreat to air conditioned homes by about 9:30 or 10 a.m. Not for me.

So, it was a relief when we arrived back in Salem to “only” 101 degrees.

AND THIS QUESTION ABOUT GOLF

The preface to this blog notes my involvement in golf — call it an addiction.  So, this question after being in the heat of Southern California.

Why doesn’t the golf ball fly farther in the thin air of heat? The answer may be that, with all the watering being done down in Southern California, the heat is compromised by humidity and that humidity tends to offset the greater golf ball distance available in the heat.

Just my supposition and I know everyone will care about this critical issue even as we watch President Trump – I hate that title president attached to Trump’s name – head off for two weeks of a “working vacation” dominated by golf.

And, wasn’t it Trump who skewered Barack Obama for playing too much golf?

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.

I run this department and, as I have said before, I have full and complete authority to do so, including to decide on what to print and what to leave out.

Also, as I write this, I am sitting in La Quinta, California, where the temperature reached 115 degrees yesterday. Likely more of the same today. So, why am I here? I am asking myself that same question.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: “One of the major failures of Obamacare was that it was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict-party line basis without a single Republican vote. We should not make the mistakes of the past.”

COMMENT: That quote came from Senator John McCain after he cast what could be one of the most important votes of his tenure in Congress – a vote to oppose even the so-called “skinny repeal” of ObamaCare. His was the vote that mattered because it meant that Vice President Mike Pence was not able to cast the tie-breaking vote. It also meant that a Republican pledge – to get rid of ObamaCare – ended up on the shoals.

NEW YORK TIMES: “Senator John McCain is less the lion of the Senate than its wildcat, veering through the decades from war hero to Republican presidential nominee to irascible foil for an unlikely president.  On Tuesday, Mr. McCain ambled gingerly into the Capitol to sustained applause less than two weeks after brain surgery, casting a vote to aid President Trump, who has served as more tormentor than ally.

“But moments later in a speech on the Senate floor, Mr. McCain turned what had been an uplifting moment for his Republican colleagues — whom he saved from an embarrassing failure on the floor — into an ominous cloud for any health care legislation.  He said that, although he had voted to begin debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act, he would definitely not vote for a Senate health care bill without major changes.”

COMMENT: That’s exactly what McCain did – voted to schedule the vote, but then oppose ObamaCare. Was it a profile in courage or a repudiation of the Republican party? Only time will tell.

WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “The larger stakes in the ObamaCare fight are whether Republicans can be a governing party. They can win elections, but, not since the early 2000s, have they showed they can pass a major reform through Congress. They blew it the last time they controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 2005-2006. They’ve already wasted six months on health care in this Congress with nothing to show but division and discord.”

COMMENT: There always is a tendency to make vast pronouncements after a defeat – vast pronouncements as in “Republicans” cannot govern. But it usually takes more time for reflection before the full effect can become known. Now, a key test for Republicans will be whether they can pass tax reform.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: “The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.

“He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen.”

COMMENT: Again one of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, effectively skewers Donald Trump, whom I hate to call President Trump. He is a self-centered, sniveling, egotist. Everything always revolves him.

It will be interesting to see if he actually gives his new chief of staff, John Kelly, the authority he needs to bring a bit of order to the chaos-driven White House. The early report, after the first day, was that Kelly illustrated he was in charge by getting rid of Anthony Scaramucci. Good riddance. Good for Kelly. We’ll see if “the general” can demand that others in the White House follow his orders and, thus, gain traction for the Trump agenda…whatever that is. The key test for Kelly is whether Trump himself will give him the authority to operate, thus bringing order out of chaos.