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 don’t say this every often, but the Wall Street Journal got it wrong the other day. At least I hope the normally credible newspaper did.

Perhaps it’s presumptuous of me to question work by what is a very competent group of journalists which helps to earn the Journal’s moniker as a leading, if not the leading, national newspaper.

The editorial said: “the House Minority Leader’s first and only job of a House minority is to become a majority.”

Perhaps part of that is true. For a leader in the minority, moving to majority status is always a key part of the task. But “the first and only job?” No.

Another job is to function as what we used to call the “loyal opposition,” meaning that those in the minority in our democracy can contribute to the development of solid policy from their position on “the other side of the political aisle.”

Of course, in this case, this requires that Democrats, now in power, spend a moment listening to Republicans. It is likely they will not and will justify their deaf ear to how they believed Republicans treated Democrats when the Rs were in power.

So, again, we have the never-ending “one bad turn deserves another” problem. The goal is to get even, not to get stuff done.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that House Republicans “are about to discover the pain of irrelevance,“ which also may be true.

“The last player chosen each spring in the National Football League draft is referred to as Mr. Irrelevant for his small chance of making a team roster in the fall. An analogy in politics is House Minority Leader, so congratulations to Kevin McCarthy on his selection Wednesday to lead House Republicans in 2019. He’s Rep. Irrelevant.”

The closest the Journal gets to advocating a policy role for minority Republicans – call it “governance” – is when it suggests Republicans “can play important roles in defending Trump Administration officials, when warranted, against Democratic excess.”

I think there is more, but the “more” will require both the Ds and the Rs to dispatch campaigning for governing.

In all of this, I’ll bet one person who is glad to be leaving the mess in Congress is outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan. He performed, the Journal says, “the thankless duty of being trashed by back-benchers in safe seats and Never Trumpers from the moral high ground of the bleachers.”

His time herding cats in the House meant that he could not deploy his obvious skills in major policy formulation, something he cultivated when he came into office, but had to leave behind when he got there. He also had to contend with President Trump, another thankless task.

As always, my interest in the coming Congress is whether those who won – and those whose party lost – can get about the business of governing, not campaigning. It’s easy to be pessimistic about this, but, still, I prefer to hold out at least a faint hope that American democracy can work.