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 question in the headline has been posed in the aftermath of the Arizona senator’s decision not to run for another term. He did so by taking to the Senate floor to launch stinging criticism of President Donald Trump.

My view is that Flake, whom I don’t know personally and have never lobbied, is a winner.

He stood up for ethics and principle, giving up a return to his Senate seat in the process. And he said what many of us have been thinking as we have watched Trump demean the presidency and engage in conduct that only be described as self-centered and narcissistic.

Now, of course, there will be those who say that Flake took the easy way out because he was likely to lose a bid for re-election, even in the Republican primary.

According to the Washington Post, recent polls in Arizona found Flake trailing the Democrat’s likely Senate nominee, Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, as well as potential primary challengers.

Flake’s surprise announcement this week came just minutes after Trump left the Capitol following a rare luncheon with GOP senators and hours after Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) reignited a weeks-long feud with the president over Trump’s temperament.

From the Post: “In an unannounced Senate floor speech Tuesday to explain his decision, Flake excoriated Trump without using his name, delivering an address that was a call to arms to like-minded conservatives and a distress call to the nation.

“We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are now, Flake said.  “If we simply become used to this condition, thinking that it is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe, we must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch is normal. It is not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused as telling it like it is when it is actually reckless, outrageous and undignified.”

Flake’s speech came on top of concerns and criticisms leveled in recent days by former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who also pointed to the coarse nature of the nation’s politics and the character of current leaders — subtle, indirect but indisputable commentaries on Trump.

Flake also has criticized many Republicans, who, he says, have adopted the “belief or the principle that you spend money to get elected. Staying in office, staying in power, has come to overwhelm everything.”

My view, from the cheap seats out West, is that Flake’s action was honorable. He couldn’t live with the current political environment, especially with Trump at the helm, so decided to step aside and, in the private sector, he will have even more chance to criticize Trump and the current Washington, D.C. without fear of political consequences for his home state, Arizona.

Would he have won re-election? We’ll never know. But what we do know is that Senator Flake delivered a solid and telling postscript to his six years in Washington, D.C. He said he would not continue to tolerate the loss of civility in politics in the Nation’s Capitol and, for that matter, I add, in the country at large.

In that way, Flake’s action recalled for me one of my favorite quotes from a past national leader, General Colin Powell…when he said he would not run for president, he “bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

That was more than 10 years ago.  Imagine what the general would say now with the continuing slide downhill in our national politics.