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.

Here’s a contrast for you:

• According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats “are going bold,” heading toward the 2020 presidential election, so much so that they even are risking significant splits in their ranks.
• Again, according to the Wall Street Journal, many states – including some led by Republicans — are offering tax cuts or tax rebates to citizens as the economy continues to percolate along in those states, if not nationally.

These developments, technically unrelated as they are, illustrate two very different views of government.

Democrats tend to want more government, even if that heads toward socialism and makes citizens subservient to big government

Republicans tend to want less government, believing that tax money “belongs” to the payers, so should be directed to specific, results-tested programs or turned back to taxpayers.

Here is more information on the two issues.

THE DEMOCRATS, according to the Wall Street Journal:

“Tear down the border wall. Pay slavery reparations. Upgrade every building in America. Tax the assets of rich people. Pack the Supreme Court with four new liberal judges.

“The newest class of Democrat presidential candidates has been swinging for the fences in recent weeks by embracing or entertaining a head-snapping list of policy ideas that were either rejected or ignored by the party’s previous standard-bearers.

“In the first months of the nomination race, big plans and audacious ideas have so far proved more attractive than pragmatism and caution, even as candidates have carefully avoided committing themselves to all the legislative details of the “Green New Deal” climate change proposal or upending the 150-year-old structure of the nation’s highest court.

“Oh, it’s impractical. Oh, it’s too expensive. Oh, it’s all this,” Senator Cory Booker (Democrat-New Jersey) told voters on his maiden trip to Iowa this month when asked about the plans promoted by House liberals to fight climate change. “If we used to govern our dreams that way, we would have never have gone to the moon.”

Some Democrat leaders agree that candidates need to be careful not to say anything now that could haunt them in the general election, if they become the nominee.

“There’s an old sports term, ‘leading with your chin’ — which is not a good idea,” said James Carville, a Democrat strategist who helped run Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, which was decidedly centrist. “You need to be cognizant that whatever you do leading up to the general will follow you.”

THE REPUBLICANS, according to the Wall Street Journal:

“State finances are enjoying flush times and some states are sending that bounty back to taxpayers.

“Arkansas this month lowered its top personal income-tax rate by 1 percentage point to 5.9 per cent and South Carolina has proposed an income tax rebate to all residents who file returns. In Florida, the governor has proposed lowering property and sales taxes. The givebacks come even as all three states proposed increased spending on education and other priorities.

“Ten years after the recession, many states have the choice of what to spend revenues on rather than what programs to cut. The National Conference of State Legislatures found in a fall survey that 48 states expected to meet or exceed their revenue expectations.

“At the same time, states are continuing to put away more money in their rainy-day funds which can be tapped during recessions. Between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2018, those funds grew nearly $33 billion in total according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.”

So, how about Oregon?

Well, I am no longer at the State Capitol in Salem as a lobbyist, so I am not as close to budget and tax issues as I once was, but I do track subjects in the Legislature just because – I guess – I am a political junkie.

There is absolutely no chance the Oregon Legislature – where Democrats are in charge by super-majorities in both the House and the Senate – will consider tax cuts. They want higher taxes on a variety of payers.

It appears the “new money,” if it arrives, would go primarily, and separately, toward K-12 education and health care, both worthy goals. But, for me, there has not yet been enough discussion about whether the taxes should be paid and, if the new money exists, how it could be used to the best advantage.

Democrats are in charge in Salem, so it follows that they should be able to follow their own logic. I just hope they go deep on the pros and cons of tax spending issues.

Plus, it is likely that Oregon’s s-called “kicker law” – it specifies that, when taxes exceed estimates by more than two per cent, the money should be returned to payers – will kick. No idea yet whether the kicker will be allowed to work, though it might be a heavy lift to change it.

One proposal is to re-direct the money into the “rainy day fund,” which, to me, makes some sense.

Yet, the re-direction should only happen if the action occurs in public with a solid rationale behind it.

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 know me know that I, for some unknown reason, like golf rules, including writing about them from time to time.

Perhaps the reason is that I have time on my hands in retirement.

This blog reports more recent rules issues.

A RULES CONTROVERSY FOR THE LPGA: It always seems that there are new rules controversies. Such was the case over the weekend in an LPGA tournament in Thailand.

American player Amy Johnson and Thailand playear Ariya Jutanguarn were involved in a situation on the 18^th green that prompted a lot of to’ing and fro’ing over rules.

What happened as that both players missed the green. It was then Jutanguarn’s turn to play first and she hit a good chip shot to about three feet from the pin. Then, instead of waiting for Jutanguarn to mark her ball, Johnson motioned her that she would hit her chip shot first.

The Johnson shot hit Jutanguarn’s ball and came to rest about two feet from the hole when, otherwise, it probably would have gone 15 to 20 feet past the pin.

The incident, which was caught on TV, prompted questions about whether Johnson was guilty of violating a golf rule (15.3 in the new golf rule book), which bars what has come to be called “backstopping.”

Here’s what the rules says:

“If two or more players agree to leave a ball in place on the putting green to help any player, and the stroke is made with the helping ball in place, each player who made the agreement gets two penalty strokes.”

LPGA tournament officials met with both players after their round and decided there was not an intent to violate the rules. Johnson especially said she was interested in speeding up pace of play. So, no penalty.

Tough to decide whether “backstopping” has occurred or not. But the rule is in place for a reason and the best that can said this time is that an intentional decision was made that there was not a violation.

As an aside, Johnson played recently at The Palms where I play in La Quinta. She did well, posting a course record for women from the white tees.

RICKEY FOWLER VIOLATES A RULE: Fowler is one of my favorite golfers and I am glad he won the recent tournament in Arizona.

This time, in Mexico for another major tournament, he committed a rules violation, one he readily admitted. He hit a bad shot, actually a shank, that went out-of-bounds. Then, to compound his error, he took a drop in the wrong way and did so fast enough that even his caddy did not see the error.

Fowler dropped from shoulder height, the old standard, rather than the new knee-high standard. He played on without correcting his mistake, so incurred another one-shot penalty.

I tend to agree with his assessment after the fact. While not opposing the penalty, Fowler suggested that rules should allow a drop anywhere between shoulder and knee. For golfers like Fowler, who have dropped from shoulder height for more than 25 years, making the new adjustment can be tough under the pressure of a major event.

Fowler suffered another unfortunate rules situation as he won the Arizona tournament a couple weeks ago. He hit a ball into the water just over a green, then took a drop in the proper way. As he walked up to the green to survey his next shot, the ball moved on its own back into the water. Another penalty.

That should not have been the case. My view is that he should have been allowed to drop again, no penalty.

AND MORE ON SLOW PLAY: Several of my on-line golf magazines have written lately about the continuing problem of slow play in golf – as I did a week or so.

Initially, I was motivated by the often agonizingly show play of J. B. Holmes, who went on to win the Genesis Open at Riviera. He is becoming known as THE major violator of slow play issues, often rivaling another very slow player, Bryson DeChambeau.

Holmes doesn’t care about the moniker.

He has been seen plumb-bobbing a two-foot putt and, repeatedly checking his green-reading book before getting around to making his next stroke, even a very short one.

Five-hour rounds? They are becoming commonplace on the PGA Tour and, until someone does something about the problem – penalty strokes? – nothing will change.

I have a few ideas, as I have mentioned in previous blogs. The one with the most potential is to mimic the European Tour’s experiment with a shot-clock on the back of a golf cart for each playing group. One result of failing to play in the allotted 40 seconds after you arrive at your ball gets a warning; the second gets a penalty stroke.

Until tournament and rules officials get the attention of tour players, slow play will continue unabated. And, unfortunately, slow play often works against one of the objectives of most golf advocacy organizations — growing the game.

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.

Yesterday, I mentioned the stupidity of new Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she congratulated herself and other far right wackos for prompting Amazon to backtrack on its plans to build a “second headquarters” near New York.

The plan would have resulted in 25,000 new jobs – perhaps up to 40,000 — and an estimated infusion of more than $25 billion to the New York area economy, not to mention the construction and other jobs associated with Amazon’s decision to build another headquarters.

I said yesterday that Ocasio-Cortez deserves what she gets, with is no new jobs in an area in or near her congressional district.

Well, Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen, went even farther in a piece with this headline:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an economic illiterate — and that’s a danger to America

Thiessen continued:

“The left complains that conservatives are ‘obsessing’ over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Well, there is a reason for that: Ocasio-Cortez is driving the agenda of today’s Democrat Party — and her economic illiteracy is dangerous.

“Case in point: Last week, Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the tanking of a deal negotiated by her fellow Democrats in which Amazon promised to build a new headquarters in Long Island City, New York, right next to her congressional district. Amazon’s departure cost the city between 25,000 and 40,000 new jobs new jobs. Forget the tech workers whom Amazon would have employed. Gone are all the unionized construction jobs to build the headquarters, as well as thousands of jobs created by all the small businesses — restaurants, bodegas, dry cleaners and food carts — that were preparing to open or expand to serve Amazon employees. They are devastated by Amazon’s withdrawal.”

Thiessen makes a key point about Ocasio-Cortez total inexperience, if not stupidity. She thought that, because Amazon would not be getting incentives worth in the range of $3 billion, the money could instead go to liberal programs she favors.

Of course, that is not true and her perception illustrates how stupid she is.

“We were subsidizing those jobs,” she is reported to have said. “Frankly, if we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district, ourselves, if we wanted to. We could hire more teachers. We could fix our subways. We could put a lot of people to work for that amount of money if we wanted to.”

No, you can’t, Thiessen counters. Ocasio-Cortez does not seem to realize that New York does not have $3 billion in cash sitting around waiting to be spent on her socialist dreams. The subsidies to Amazon were tax incentives, not cash payouts. It is Amazon’s money, which New York agreed to make tax-exempt, so the company would invest it in building its new headquarters, hiring new workers and generating tens of billions in new tax revenue.

Beyond that key point and rather than selecting Thiessen quotes to emphasize, let me just reprint much of his piece.

**********

As New York Mayor Bill de Blasio explained the Amazon deal would have produced “$27 billion in new tax revenue to fuel priorities from transit to affordable housing — a nine-fold return on the taxes the city and state were prepared to forgo to win the headquarters.” Unlike Ocasio-Cortez’s imaginary $3 billion slush fund, that is real money that actually could have been used to hire teachers, fix subways and put people to work. With Amazon leaving New York, that $27 billion leaves with it. Genius.

Ocasio-Cortez does not seem to understand that by helping to drive Amazon away, she did not save New York $3 billion; she cost New York $27 billion. There is a difference between having bad ideas and not grasping basic facts. Reasonable people can disagree about whether New York should have offered Amazon $3 billion in tax incentives — or anything at all — to build its headquarters in the city. But that is different from not understanding that New York is not writing a $3 billion check to Amazon.

Sadly, Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t learn from her mistakes. She made the same kind of error in December when she tweeted, “$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained.’ $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.” But, as Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood told The Post, “DoD hasn’t received $21 trillion in (nominal) appropriated funding across the entirety of American history.” Once again, Ocasio-Cortez did not grasp that the Pentagon did not have a magic pile of $21 trillion in cash sitting in a vault somewhere.

Her economic illiteracy matters because she is the principal author of the Green New Deal, which has been endorsed by most of the leading Democrat candidates for president. From this unschooled mind has sprung the most ambitious plan for government intervention in the economy since Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s train pulled into Petrograd’s Finland Station.

If Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t understand how tax subsidies work, how can she be trusted to plan the federal takeover of the health-care, energy and transportation sectors of our economy? Think she and her allies have any idea how to, as her now infamous talking points put it, upgrade or replace “every building in America” . . . or replace “every combustible-engine vehicle” . . . or connect every corner of America with high-speed rail . . . or replace all fossil-fuel energy with alternative energy sources — all in 10 years’ time? Apparently, they think we just have to find all the magic pots of cash the government is hiding.

When this kind of ignorance is driving policymaking in Washington, America is in profound danger. Amazon left New York because Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow democratic socialists created a hostile environment in the city. And if Ocasio-Cortez has her way, Democrats are going to do to the rest of America what they just did to New York.

**********

I’ll give Wall Street Journal columnist the last word on the Amazon deal – or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the “undeal:”

“The story’s over but it doesn’t stop hurting. Twenty-five thousand jobs lost, maybe 40,000 when all is said and done, and of all kinds—high-tech, management, white-collar, blue. All the construction, and the signs and symbols of a coming affluence: the streets lit bright, the sidewalks busy, shops and restaurants humming, hiring. The feeling of safety you have when you pass doorways on the street at night and can hear laughter and conversation on the other side.

“This is not just ‘a loss,’ it is a whole lost world. And it is a watershed event for my town. After Amazon’s withdrawal no major American company will open a new headquarters here for at least a generation. No CEO is going to do what Jeff Bezos did, invest all that time and money, do all the planning, negotiating and deciding, only to see it collapse in bitter headlines because the politicians you’re making the deal with can’t control their own troops, and because, in the end, it is summoning a humiliation to do big business in a town whose political life is dominated by a wild and rising left.”

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.

Some call it shabby “corporate welfare.”

Others call it solid “economic development.”

Never the twain shall meet. And that is too bad for a country that, despite rising far left socialist leaders like Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, still depends on smart capitalism that creates jobs.

In the Wall Street Journal today, deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henninger wrote this:

“Whatever their tensions with industrial capitalism, American union leaders like George Meany, Lane Kirkland and Leonard Woodcock knew their success depended on the private sector’s success. With the private unions’ decline and the rise of public-sector unions, whose lifeblood is tax revenue, a significant brake on the party’s roll toward socialism disappeared.”

Thus, the rise of socialism.

Both corporate welfare and economic development labels came to the fore last week as Amazon, one of the country’s largest corporations, pulled its plans for a major, new “second headquarters” near New York City.

The company acted after various New York officials raised questions about what they called “corporate welfare.” Which were incentives, including tax abatements, offered to Amazon to entice the company to locate an estimated 25,000 jobs near New York, along with billions of dollars in new investment

The far left cheered the decision to move. Of course, the new jobs and investment went away, too.

As an old economic development manager in Oregon, I thought the incentives would pay off for New York in the form of the new jobs, plus the taxes the new job-holders would pay.

“Are New Yorkers better off after Amazon’s decision to cancel its planned headquarters in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City?” the Wall Street Journal asked. “It’s a complicated question, weighing the benefits of new high-earning residents against the added strain on local services.”

For me, the “jobs issue” would prevail.

From the day Amazon announced the new headquarters last November, city and state officials drew widespread criticism for offering Amazon $3 billion in tax breaks. The then-newly elected Ocasio-Cortez, the wacko of the far left, lamented the huge giveaway “at a time when our subway is crumbling.”

Ask me if I care what Ocasio-Cortez says or does. I don’t.

She is so far left that what she says is nuts, not to mention based on both inadequate study and naivete, even as she advocates socialism for this country.

Yet, progressive candidates – I hate that word “progressive” because it connotes that those who go by or are given that label somehow have progress in mind, often far from the truth — talking tough about the harms of corporate tax incentives could be setting themselves up for disappointment once elected.

Democrat-run states like Connecticut and New Jersey watch businesses flee punishing corporate and property tax rates.

What these Democrats are finding and will find is that they cannot have it both ways. They cannot tarnish the reputation of corporations that provide jobs while lamenting the fact that jobs do not exist – if, in fact, those on the far left ever remember that jobs hang in the balance.

If was still managing economic development programs in Oregon, I would:

• Be willing to consider granting various incentives to companies which are trying to save or expand the number of jobs they provide.
• Part of the consideration would not just revolve around the tired slogan – corporate welfare – it would be a sharp, cogent analysis of the pros and cons of the helping the private sector save or create jobs. And, by pros, I mean estimating the effect of the new taxes the new job-holders would pay – a fact, and an important one, often overlooked by those on the far left.
• And, if incentives made sense, I would expect companies to sign a contract committing to provide the jobs they promise, or, if they cannot make good on the job-creating pledge, to give up the tax or other incentives they might have received at the front end.

Back to the deal involving Amazon. Too bad, I say, for New York as the far left prevailed over reason.

Amazon has options. It will take its jobs and investment elsewhere.

I know it won’t happen, but why not consider Oregon? Such a “second headquarters” location would mean employees could easily travel between “headquarters one” in Seattle and “headquarters two” in the Portland area.

Bring on the new jobs.

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.

An article under the headline – “I’m not the grammar police” – caught my attention the other day because it dealt with what, for me, has been a key proposition over my years in journalism and lobbying.

It is this: Good writing is one key to good thinking. No guarantee. Just one key.

I relayed my emphasis on writing to many applicants I was interviewing over the years in the state agencies I helped manage or in the lobbying and public relations firm I co-founded where I spent 25 years before retirement.

For me, there are several keys to good writing, as follows:

• Develop your own style. Don’t try to copy someone else.
• Find the best words to make your point. And that requires just a bit of focus.
• Understand that more words don’t necessarily make better writing. Strive to limit the number of words you use, but….
• Also understand that good writing has a lilt and sense of rhythm to it, not just the paucity of words.
• Strive to use active verbs, which can bring writing come alive.
• Practice the art of what I call the “spring transition” – which means that the end of one paragraph springs to the next. Let me provide an example, which I am making:  Governor Kate Brown won plaudits for her effort to find middle ground on various issues at the Capitol.  Call it an attempt at bi-partisanship. Then, on to the next paragraph:  Bi-partisan efforts also marked the work of Senator Mark Hass as he tried to forge a compromise on tax policy in the Senate Revenue Committee.

Back to the “I am not the grammar police” article.

“To be sure,” the writer said, “there are certain standards that persist by consensus and more or less inarguably because they quietly, invisibly support clarity. Subjects and verbs should agree in number, for instance. Yet, there are many more shades of gray in ‘good English.’

“What’s left is more important than so-called good English: Effective English. English that clearly, strongly and unambiguously — unless you have a penchant for ambiguity — conveys from writers’ brains through their typing fingers and onward to the imaginations of their readers what it is that writers are attempting to communicate.”

To that, I say kudos. Good grammar makes sense especially if bad grammar contributes to bad writing.

But when all is said and done, keep striving for good writing because, among other things, it often illustrates good thinking.

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.

Last weekend, we were treated to another example of golf’s most egregious issue – slow play.

The final group in the pro tour Genesis Open treated us to a five-and-one-half hour round. One reason was the wind was up, making it difficult to hit the fairway, pick a club from the fairway, and read a green.

But, still – five-and-one-half hours to play 18 holes?

I say no.

The most egregious violator was the eventual winner, J.B. Holmes, who has made a slow play a mark of distinction – well, not a distinction, but that’s how he describes it in a story from my on-line edition of Global Golf Post.

From the Post:

“Holmes, now being mocked as the ‘human rain delay’ by many on social media, has earned himself enemies in the past, particularly last year when he took more than four minutes to play his second shot on the 72^nd hole at the Farmers Insurance Open.

“This time, in the Genesis Open, the outrage stemmed from him taking more than a minute to line up putts, and using green reading books and plum-bobbing even if he had a glorified tap-in remaining.”

It was so egregious that the usually conservative CBS on-course reporter, Peter Kostis, took Holmes to task.

“’The problem is not that he is going through this routine,’ Kostis said. ‘The problem is that he waited until his playing partners were done before he started it.’”

Holmes, only one of the slow play practitioners, is unapologeti

The kind of money pros are playing for and the places up-for-grabs in the FedEx points race prompt him to say things like, “There’s times when I am probably too slow, but it is what it is.”

As I said, Holmes is only one of the slow play artists. Another is Bryson DeChambeau who takes the “science of golf” to new, lengthy levels before playing any shot. And, I still remember a pro from old days, Glenn Day, who now plays on the senior tour. He earned the nickname “All Day.”

The basic problem is that slow play works against golf becoming more popular, a quest that occupies many of the golf organizations such as the United States Golf Association.

As amateurs watch pro golfers, many tend to mimic the style as they take five hours to get through 18 holes — and that reality, at the amateur level, slow play, dissuades many from taking up the game that already could be contended to take too long.

So, what is the answer? Well, I have several.

First, I would penalize pros for slow play. The standard is that it is supposed to take 40 seconds to play a shot. If it takes more, the pro should get a warning the first time, then a one-stroke penalty the second time. That would get the pro’s attention.

Second, the Global Golf Post makes a good point when it says that ShotLink technology, already in place, could eventually be used in pace-of-play enforcement. “We already are able to tell exactly where each player is on the course down to the inch,” the Post says. “We can accurately trace their shots in real time. Would it be possible for this technology to identify when a player has arrived at his or her ball and it’s his or her turn to hit?” Then, use that information to impose penalties for slow play.

Third, why not try what the European Tour did in 2018 during its appropriately called “Shot Clock Masters.”

Here’s the way the system was described:

“The 2018 Shot Clock Masters in Austria will be the first tournament in professional golf to use a shot clock on every shot as part of the European Tour’s bid to combat slow play.

“In accordance with this official policy, each player in the 120-man field had 50 seconds for the first player in a group to play any given shot and 40 seconds for subsequent players. Players will incur a one-shot penalty for each bad time incurred and these will be shown as a red card against their name on the leaderboard.

“Each player will have the right to call two ‘time-outs’ during a round which will permit them twice the usually allotted time to play the shot.”

As I watched the 2018 tournament on TV, each group was followed by a golf cart with a shot clock riding on it for everyone – including players and the golf crowd – to see. I remember one case where a player took 41 seconds to play a shot and got a one-stroke penalty for being over the limit.

Back to the Global Golf Post, which put it this way:

“Playing the game within a reasonable time frame should be part of the challenge of golf. What would happen if a quarterback didn’t have a play clock to beat? Taking a minute-and-a-half to dissect the defense would not only be antagonizing, it would defeat a fundamental skill of quickly analyzing the situation.”

The same could be said about golf, but, frankly, the only way to prompt appropriate levels of speed would be to impose violations for show play.

The violations would be meted out first in pro tournaments, then get down to amateur play where the penalty could be a fine, tough, I know to impose, when persons have played money to play.

That’s the way it is at the course I play in La Quinta, California, The Palms. The stated goal is to play 18 holes in three hours and 50 minutes, though the advice from the pros often is to aim at three hours and 30 minutes.

That time happens without difficulty.

Not tough if you focus on golf and don’t mimic slow play artists on the pro golf tours.

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.

Okay, I am taking a respite – at least for a day — from blogging about such weighty topics as the fate of capitalism in the face of left wing wackiness or whether Trump’s wall constitutes an emergency.

I had a new experience a couple weekends ago – attending a polo match here in La Quinta, California.

It was something I always wanted to do, but, having done it once, I have no real desire to attend again. Still, for the first time, it was an interesting experience.

Some perceptions:

• I am not a horse guy, but the polo horses are beautiful and impressive animals.
• The riders are good, too, with an ability to lead their mount to go from an easy trot to a substantial gallop in what looks to be only a few feet. Then, they often stop on a dime
• I wondered whether guys on horses with long wooden mallets, which they swing hard, would create safety issues for riders and horses. No. This polo rule governs play:

“Line of the Ball: Once hit, the ball creates an imaginary line as it travels, and the player or players on the line have the right of way.”

• I have not read all of the polo match rules, but I suspect they don’t measure up to golf rules, though the match is still played outdoors and not in a pavilion or stadium, which means the need for more rules.
• I talked about a polo match with a friend of mine here who has been to more than one event. I asked about safety and other issues. He made this telling comment: “At all costs, riders are worried about their horses, taking great care of them.”
• No wonder, the horses are beautiful animals which, as I understand it, have retired from racing, but have moved on to polo. Yhey are “thoroughbreds” and look like it.

And this final question.

Why do many women wear big hats at events involving horses? I have seen this during television coverage of the Kentucky Derby and I saw it at the polo match, as well.

No problem with that style, but I have no answer to the probing question of why.

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.

There is no better way to follow my blog yesterday – it commented on the lurching left of socialism in this country – than to re-print a column by Peggy Noonan that is running in the Wall Street Journal.

In her typical vibrant and readable writing style, Noonan contends that Republicans now face a duty, especially in the face of loony left, to save capitalism.

But, not just for saving sake. For, Noonan says, participating in capitalism in the right way, which means those who are “rich” taking at least some responsibility, without a government mandate, for those who are less fortunate.

Such actions would be a great way to counter Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other wackos on the left.

So, here’s Noonan.

***********

Let’s think about the broader, less immediate meaning of our political era.

This is how I read it and have read it for some time:

The Democratic Party is going hard left. There will be stops and starts but it’s the general trajectory and will be for the foreseeable future. Pew Research sees the party lurching to the left since 2009; Gallup says the percentage of Democrats calling themselves liberal has jumped 23 points since 2000. But you don’t need polls. More than 70 Democrats in the House, and a dozen in the Senate, have signed on to the Green New Deal, an extreme-to-the-point-of-absurdist plan that is yet serious: Its authors have staked out what they want in terms of environmental and economic policy, will try to win half or a quarter of it, and on victory will declare themselves to have been moderate all along. The next day they will continue to push for everything. The party’s presidential hopefuls propose to do away with private medical insurance and abolish ICE. Three years ago Hillary Clinton would have called this extreme; today it is her party’s emerging consensus.

The academy and our mass entertainment culture are entities of the left and will continue to push in that direction. Millennials, the biggest voting-age bloc in America, are to the left of the generations before them. Moderates are aging out. The progressives are young and will give their lives to politics: It’s all they’ve ever known. It is a mistake to dismiss their leaders as goofballs who’ll soon fall off the stage. They may or may not, but those who support and surround them are serious ideologues who mean to own the future.

None of this feels like a passing phase. It feels like the outline of a great political struggle that will be fought over the next 10 years or more.

Two thoughts, in the broadest possible strokes, on how we got here:

The American establishment had to come to look very, very bad. Two long unwon wars destroyed the GOP’s reputation for sobriety in foreign affairs, and the 2008 crash cratered its reputation for economic probity. Both disasters gave those inclined to turn from the status quo inspiration and arguments. Culturally, 2008 was especially resonant: The government bailed out its buddies and threw no one in jail, and the capitalists failed to defend the system that made them rich. They dummied up, hunkered down and waited for it to pass.

Americans have long sort of accepted a kind of deal regarding leadership by various elites and establishments. The agreement was that if the elites more or less play by the rules, protect the integrity of the system, and care about the people, they can have their mansions. But when you begin to perceive that the great and mighty are not necessarily on your side, when they show no particular sense of responsibility to their fellow citizens, all bets are off. The compact is broken: They no longer get to have their mansions. They no longer get to be “the rich.”

For most of the 20th century the poor in America didn’t hate the rich for their mansions; they wanted a mansion and thought they could get one if things turned their way. When you think the system’s rigged, your attitude changes.

On the right the same wars, the same crash, and a different aspect. In the great issue of the 2016 campaign it became unmistakably clear that the GOP elite did not care in the least how the working class experienced immigration. The party already worried too much about border security—that’s the lesson the elites took from Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, according to their famous autopsy. They appeared to look after their own needs, their own reputations: We’re not racist like people who worry about the border! They were, as I’ve written, the protected, who looked down on those with rougher lives. The unprotected noticed, and began to sunder their relationship with establishments and elites.

Donald Trump came of that sundering. He was the perfect insult thrown in the establishment’s face. You’re such losers we’re hiring a reality-TV star to take your place. He’ll be better than you.

Conservatives regularly attend symposia to discuss the future of conservatism. Republicans in Washington stumble around trying to figure what to stand for beyond capitalizing on whatever zany thing some socialist said today.

But isn’t their historical purpose clear? Their job—now and in the coming decade—is, in a supple, clever and concerted way, to save the free-market system from those who would dismantle it. It is to preserve and defend the capitalism that made America a great thing in the world and that, for all its flaws and inequities, created and spread stupendous wealth. The natural job of conservatives is to conserve, in this case that great system.

I’ll go whole hog here. We need a cleaned-up capitalism, not a weary, sighing, acceptance-of-man’s-fallen-nature capitalism. Republicans and conservatives need a more capacious sense of what is needed in America now, including what their own voters need. The party needs a tax-and-spending reality that takes into account an understandable and prevalent mood of great need. They need to be moderate, peaceable and tactful on social issues, but firm, too. This is where the left really is insane: As the earnest, dimwitted governor of Virginia thoughtfully pointed out, they do allow the full-term baby to be born, then make it comfortable as they debate whether it should be allowed to take its first breath or quietly expire on the table. A party that can’t stand up against that doesn’t deserve to exist.

All this must be done with a sense of how Americans on the ground are seeing things. What they see all around them cultural catastrophe—drugs, the decline of faith, the splintering of all norms by which they’d lived, schools that don’t teach and that leave their kids with a generalized anxiety. They want more help to deal with this. If you said, “We’re going to have a national program to help our boys become good men,” they would be for it, they would cheer. If you said, “We’re going to get serious and apply brains and money to what we all know is a mental-health crisis in America,” they wouldn’t care about the cost—and they’d be right not to care. They think as a people we’ve changed, our character has changed, and this dims our future. Make things better on the ground now and we’ll figure out the rest later.

These are not quaint nostalgists pining for the past, they are realists looking at ruin. They know some future crisis will test whether we can hold together as a nation. Whatever holds us together now must be undergirded, expanded.

Much will depend on how the Republican Party handles this epic era, because the Democrats are not only going left, they will do it badly. They will lurch, they will be spurred by anger and abstractions, they will be destructive. They really would kill the goose that laid the golden egg, because they feel no loyalty to it.

Republicans, save that goose. Change yourselves and save capitalism.

You are thinking, “My goodness, that’s what FDR said he was doing!”

Yes.

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.

Forgive me, but I cannot get out of my head that the weird, over-the-top proposals to install socialism in this country arise because those making them are jealous of the so-called “rich” who have worked hard to produce their “wealth.”

None other than the mercurial new U.S. representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wants America to become socialist so she and those for whom she says she speaks can receive government hand-outs.  She prefers government largesse over hard work.

Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen wrote about this in a piece that ran Friday under this headline:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accidentally exposes the left’s big lie

Here is how Thiessen started his piece:

“Cortez’s now infamous talking points on the Green New Deal are the most unintentionally honest explanation of the neo-socialism now gripping the Democratic Party. Too honest, apparently. After her office sent the “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)” to NPR, the Post and other news organizations, and posted a similar version on her congressional website, they were met with withering criticism — prompting Ocasio-Cortez to furiously backtrack, seeking to disown and discredit documents her office had produced, posted and distributed.

“Sorry, you don’t get to do that. Ocasio-Cortez told us what is really behind her Green New Deal. Now she, and the Democrats who endorsed her plan, have to live with it.”

Incredibly, Ocasio-Cortez has advocated for “getting rid of farting cows and airplanes,” upgrading or replacing “every building in America,” replacing “every combustible-engine vehicle,” and providing “economic security” for people “unwilling to work.”

There you have it – the left wing plan for America, unveiled by Ocasio-Cortez.

But Thiessen writes that “taxing the rich won’t come close to covering the costs of the Green New Deal, which includes a bunch of socialist policies that have nothing to do with climate change.”

Further, the Post reports that Manhattan Institute budget expert Brian Riedl has calculated the 10-year costs of proposals from the left. The results are stunning: $32 trillion for a single-payer health care plan; $6.8 trillion for a government jobs guarantee; $2 trillion for education, medical leave, job training and retirement security; and between $5 trillion and $40 trillion to fund universal basic income to support those who are “unwilling” to work. Grand total? Between $46 and $81 trillion.

Based on Reidl’s research, Thiessen contends the estimates “cover the price tag only before we even get to the energy and environmental policies in the Green New Deal. It is virtually impossible to accurately calculate the cost of replacing every vehicle that uses a combustion engine; bringing high-speed rail to every corner of America; upgrading or replacing every building in America; and replacing all fossil fuel energy with alternative energy sources. We’re talking hundreds of trillions of dollars. It would be virtually impossible to pay for it. And Americans don’t want to anyway.”

Now, with Ocasio-Cortez several things are true.

• She is nuts. She doesn’t know much about real government or real public policy issues. Her inexperience doesn’t dissuade her from proposing nearly anything.
• She talks – or releases information on-line – before she thinks…if she thinks at all.
• She conducts herself on the left like Trump does on the right. You cannot believe all she says as she relies on partial truths, out-of-context numbers, or outright lies.
• She reveals the true dimensions of the socialist proposals advocated by such presidential aspirants as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

And, this conclusion by Thiessen in his Washington Post piece: “With her FAQ release, Ocasio-Cortez has inadvertently exposed the neo-socialist lie that you can get something for nothing. The Democratic Party’s embrace of that lie is going to get President Trump re-elected.”

For me, re-electing Trump would be bad, so here’s hoping that both Occasion-Cortez, Trump and their like on the far right and far left implode on the way to 2020.

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.

For a person who follows golf rules, there was another fascinating situation last Sunday in the final round of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament.

After suspensions of play earlier in the day due to bad weather, the two players in the final group – Phil Mickelson and Paul Casey – were trying to finish before dark.

And it was dark, though, as always, TV screens tended to show more light than there was.

On the 16^th green, Mickelson finished the hole, as Casey exercised his right not to finish, with a four or five-foot put for par left on the hole. He wanted to wait until Monday when, among other things, the greens would have been manicured to remove blemishes after a long day of play on Sunday.

The first impression, left by announcers in the TV booth, was that both players – Mickelson and Casey – would have to decide together whether to continue

Mickelson appeared to want to continue. Casey did not.

Both were within their rights according to golf rules.

But, the fact is that, in stroke play, one player can continue and one player can stop. They key phrase is, “in stroke play.”

If one player – in this case, Mickelson – decided to keep playing, he could do so, but then Casey, who had decided to stop playing, would have had to follow Mickelson in order to keep serving as his scorekeeping marker.

It turned out that both players stopped, leaving two holes to finish on the next day.

All of this was pointed out to me on Monday as I played at The Palms golf course here in La Quinta. One of the other members there is Tom Loss, a long-time golf rules official who, besides serving as a referee in many national pro and amateur tournaments, worked for TV as a rules adviser.

He has told me that he was often in a TV truck on a tournament site, providing advice to commentators, off-camera and off-mike.

As we talked on this Monday, he came across as irritated that, whomever was providing rules advice during the CBS telecast, did not summarize the accurate rules application. In match play, players agree together on whether to continue playing or not. In stroke play, the decision does not have to be made together.

A final note is that I have known Tom for many years. Back more than 20 years ago, he served as a rules official in the first of 11 national tournaments in which my son, Eric, has played. I was on the bag for Eric in that tournament in Connecticut and I remember, on the first hole, that Tom waved me off to stand farther to the side as Eric played his second shot into the par 4.

I add quickly that, as a caddy, I knew enough not stand behind a player during a swing. I thought I was in an appropriate position, but, nonetheless, I quickly moved farther away at Tom’s direction.

I don’t know why this situation sticks in my mind to this day.  A friend said that this 20-year-old memory, which I had described to him, struck him like pro golfers who remember shots they hit to win tournaments long in the past.  They remember the club they hit, how far it was to the hole, and whether they hit a fade or a draw.

But, if nothing else for me, my memory of Tom’s role long ago indicates that I value him as a rules official.  And, in this case involving Mickelson and Casey, he is right.

This was confirmed to me earlier when another friend, Mike Bennett, said something similar happened to him when he and others were playing in a college golf tournament some years ago. He said one player in a group could continue; others in a group could stand down. And that’s what happened in his tournament.

A footnote to all of this is that, on Monday, Mickelson won the tournament by playing the final two holes in one under par and Casey finished solo second when he birdied #18. His pro-am team also won that side of the tournament.

Good result, I say, for both Mickelson and Casey. And Mickelson struck a classy note when, on Monday, he complimented Casey on the decision not continue on Sunday night. It was a solid and understandable decision Mickelson said, one that worked for both players.

Based on this situation, I learned something more about golf rules, which shows, among other things, that I don’t have much else to do in retirement. But golf rules situation are fun, just as they are difficult to decipher, even under the new golf rules (they were effective as of January 1) developed by the United States Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient.