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 think about it for a moment, the headline in this blog captures a noteworthy fact.

In my 25 years as a private sector contract lobbyist in Oregon, I only remember two cases where I developed major questions – negative questions – about a client.

That’s saying something!

And that means that the vast majority of my firm’s clients were top-drawer folks. It was a pleasure to represent them at the Capitol in Salem. Two of the best were the Port of Portland and Providence Health & Services. My association with these and many others added positively to our firm’s reputation, as well as, I hope, to my own.

Now, just quick summary about the two bad applies.

One was a company that came to Oregon hoping to establish a bail bonds system here. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was a client we never should have accepted. But it was early in the throes of starting our business, so, I guess, that was a reason for taking the client.

I knew it was a bad deal when I met with representatives of the client in a Portland hotel and I felt like I was meeting with members of the mob. I wanted to take a shower after the meeting. Clearly, a bad deal.

The second bad client was a company that wanted to start a major, NASCAR-like racetrack in the Boardman area east of Portland along the Columbia River.

At first blush, it sounded like an idea worth pursuing, though the effort would contain all the inherent risks of such a major economic development project in rural Oregon. Still, we felt the proposal was worth our involvement to be involved in what produce an economic boost for an area that needed help.

So, we accepted the client. However, I knew the client almost immediately it was not a good choice. In the first meeting in our firm’s downtown Portland office, the client representative reiterated his request for our help in a way that went against everything we stood for as a lobbying and public relations company.

He asked us “to open our Rolodex,” a reference to the old way of keeping a list of our firm’s contacts that we had cultivated over the years.

We were prepared to engage the client in a strategic way – analyzing the goal, deciding on the overarching aspirations, and then (and only then) coming up with a list of tactics designed to support the strategy.

Needless to say, we didn’t keep the client for long and the proposal in Boardman never materialized.

Upon reflection, I guess there was a third client, which gave me misgivings. It was health insurance coalition headquartered in Washington, D.C. It came to us to ask us to come up with a list of individuals in Oregon who would be willing to go to the polls to oppose over-the-top health insurance regulation if, in fact, as predicted, there would be such a proposal on the ballot.

That kind of work – forming a coalition to advocate for a point of view — was in our firm’s wheelhouse. But the trouble was this: There was no immediate threat of a ballot measure in Oregon. So it was hard to energize folks to oppose something that didn’t yet exist!

I was assigned to lead the work in Oregon, but, after I pushed back several times on the task, the coalition in D.C. decided to stop our work. Good – and the fact is that the threat to health insurance companies never materialized in Oregon, at least not at the polls.

Over 25 years, I worked with and for many top clients and appreciated the chance to do so. But, for me, it also pays once in awhile to remember the bad ones if only to focus on the contrast of all the good ones.