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.

Pretty far!

Off the political spectrum, in fact!

Political columnist, Peggy Noonan, made this point in a piece she wrote recently for the Wall Street Journal.

“A generation after President Bill Clinton declared that the ‘era of big government is over, Democrats,’ Democrats are engaged in an intra-party fight over how aggressively to expand the government’s reach into the lives of everyday people.

“Free college, government-backed health care and subsidy checks for newborns, all considered politically untenable ideas during the 2016 presidential campaign, are among the proposals being floated by top candidates in the crowded 2020 presidential primary field.

“The advocates for a larger government role are among the party’s savviest social-media users, including Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, which has provided a megaphone for their views.

“The wing of the party that advocates more incremental change is resisting what it sees as moving too far, and too fast, toward a bigger government role—something that already is being labeled ‘socialism’ by the Republican opponent-in-waiting, President Donald Trump.”

As far left as these proposals are, no one can top Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is a major author of some of the notions.

And, in the interest of fairness, far right folks, including President Donald Trump — if he belongs on the right and no on his own weird stance as nowhere other this bloated ego – are no better than the lefties. Neither side has the country’s best interests are heart.

The push to the left is coming in part from a vocal group of freshman lawmakers, including Ocasio-Cortez, who ran in Democrat strongholds vowing to shake up the party hierarchy and push for change on such issues as climate and health care.

Not only that. Ocasio-Cortez has demonstrated an incredible lack of understanding about public policy that, in effect, makes her like Donald Trump. Neither knows what they’re doing when it comes to making decisions about government, either in terms of an appropriate role or the details of individual policies.

Ocasio-Cortez made this abundantly clear when she applauded Amazon’s decision not to move forward on a second headquarters location in the New York area. Good, she said, and now it would be possible to spend the $3 billion that would be saved on other left-learning programs.

Of course, almost everyone else knew that there was not $3 billion to be spent. That was the amount Amazon was scheduled to receive then gave up, in tax incentives. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t know about the easy-to-see distinction.

Or, as a governor I worked for a number of years ago would have said: “She doesn’t know beans from buckshot.”

When I queried a friend – he is an admitted and avowed liberal — about Ocasio-Cortez, he said she did not represent the true Democrat party. Well, if not, then she is getting a lot of publicity as one apparent leader of the left.

Former Vice President Joe Biden told would-be donors recently that he often faces criticism from the “new left,” but claimed he has the “most progressive record” of anyone trying to get into the 2020 presidential election field.

One of his would-be rivals, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, has called the policies outlined in the Green New Deal—a climate change platform advocated by Ocasio-Cortez—as “aspirations.”

Noonan says what she calls “an ideological debate” could re-define the Democrat Party after more than two decades of dominance by supporters of the Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Noonan continues: “The Democrat fight is being fueled by pent-up frustration from a new generation of leaders, whose political outlooks were largely formed in the aftermaths of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the economic meltdown at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency.

“It is being animated by a liberal activist base that has grown independent of the party establishment. The ultimate arbiter in the struggle will be a Democrat primary electorate that reflects the party’s emerging power centers: Millennials and minorities.”

Still, looming over the intra-party debate is the question of how best to beat Trump. Former Delaware Governor Jack Markell, an ally of Biden and several governors considering entering the race, said “the only way that Trump can win is if the D nominee is too far to the left.”

Asked his definition of “too far left,” Markell said it is “the giving-everything-away-for-free lane.”

So, the Ds favor increasing government largesse? Yes. They have no problem spending other people’s money.

I hope some kind of centrist – Republican, Democrat, third-party, I don’t care – emerges who can appeal to voters opposed to either far left or far right ideas that are designed more to attract certain kinds of voters than to produce good solutions.

That’s the only way Trump can lose his re-election bid, as well as the only way Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk can be relegated to where they belong, which is on the sidelines.

Give me a person with character, knowledge, experience and credibility in the Oval Office.