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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.

In a post earlier this week, I outlined my mixed emotions about Elizabeth Warren who is at or near the top of the list of Democrats running for president.

She made headlines late last week by unveiling her plan to fund the Medicare for All plan that she touts as a priority for Americans.

Still, while I give her credit for going on record with the numbers, the problem is two-fold – first, they don’t hold up well under scrutiny, and, second, they impose huge tax increases on many Americans who may not favor an approach where federal bureaucrats would make their health care decisions.

If Warren wins the Democrat primary, my fear is that Donald Trump, even with all his bombast and buffoonery, often, will take her apart on the campaign trail.

The fact is that a Warren win for the Ds could very well mean Trump gets re-elected.

That was a point made very well this morning by Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, who with good words and trenchant analysis, often gets to the heart of issues facing this country.

Witness what he wrote under this headline, “Warren’s climb in the polls should horrify Democrats.”

“With the fact of serious ethical breaches by President Trump all but demonstrated, most elected Republicans do not seem to be struggling with their consciences over impeachment. They wrestle, instead, with a more practical challenge: Continuing to support a corrupt man without appearing too corrupt themselves.

“This is not the kind of political objective that encourages idealism and attracts young people to public service. Instead, the torch has been passed to a new generation of shills and rationalizers, frightened of their own mercurial leader, intimidated by an angry base and dedicated to maintaining the blessing of presidential fundraising for their campaigns.

“The main occupation of the GOP at this point in history is the defense of public corruption, which is a particularly insidious form of corruption. Those who excuse Trump’s abuses of power will not escape his taint.”

“And yet — at this low point of presidential character and congressional GOP courage — perhaps the most politically talented Democrat challenger to Trump in 2020, Senator Elizabeth Warren is six points behind the president in Michigan, even with Trump in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and four points behind Trump in Florida (according to recent surveys by the New York Times Upshot and Siena College).”

This, Gerson avers, should horrify Democrats. “One of the most exciting, substantive, compelling voices in their presidential field would stand a good chance of re-electing Trump. And this is not a problem that can be solved through good speeches and clever advertising. The weak points that Trump would exploit are the centerpieces of Warren’s campaign — the very reasons that Democrats are falling for her.”

Here is a list of problems for Warren.

• In producing her recent funding plan for Medicare-for-all, she doubled down on ending private health insurance in the United States. Ds may like this ideological boldness, but now, Gerson says, Warren has very little flexibility to make her plan seem less disruptive and frightening in a general election against Trump.
• She is proposing hugely to expand the role and reach of government in American lives, and to spend an additional $20.5 trillion (or more) over 10 years to do so, at a time when trust in government is near an all-time low.
• Her plan to socialize — there is no other word for it — the health insurance industry fights against a swift current of public skepticism.
• The fact is that, over time, Obamacare, has become more stable, reducing the number of uninsured Americans (though less than proposed by the former president). This reality creates more problems for Warren. She wants to scrap ObamaCare and start over with a government-centric approach, thus displacing private insurance for millions of Americans.

Whether Warren can achieve her big health care idea without middle-class tax increases appears unlikely. So, she will be solidly on record, whether she likes to admit it or not, in favor of huge tax increases if she fights Trump next year.

Gerson asks a final question about Warren.

“Can she eventually transform her public image from being a progressive populist to being a mere populist? Her health-care proposal indicates she cannot. Trump’s charge of socialism — more accurately, SOCIALISM! — may seem hyperbolic. But it is more likely to stick when a candidate proposes to abolish all private health insurance, put a government bureaucracy in charge and spend an additional $2 trillion a year on her ambitions.

“It is always tempting to view the weakness of a political opponent as an opportunity to gain total ideological victory. But in the case of Trump, this would be a blunder. If the 2018 midterms are any indication, the president has shed supporters at the more moderate edges of his coalition. And they will be attracted by stability and incrementalism, not disruption and radicalism — no matter how principled and well explained.”

So, for Trump, Warren may be the exactly the kind of candidate he would relish meeting at the polls – that is, if he survives impeachment.

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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 asked myself a probing question this past weekend in between watching golf and football.

If the 2020 presidential contest came down to Donald Trump vs. Elizabeth Warren, for whom would I vote? The context is that support for Warren appears to be on the rise while support for Joe Biden appears to be waning.

I thought of this in relation to a comment from a friend of mine a couple weeks ago – a stalwart Republican, by the way – who said he was so sick of Trump’s excesses that he would vote for “anybody but Trump.”

In the spirit of full disclosure about a year away from the presidential vote, I find myself in a similar camp, though I have not yet decided if I could vote for a currently-running Democrat, including Warren, because they are so far left as to be out of sight.

For me, that might mean casting my vote for a third-party candidate who would display the types of credentials I think we need in the leader of the free world.

Regarding Warren, I would have to think long and hard about her vision for America, which, put simply, is to create more and more government. The result would intrude into all of our lives, often with a demand that we pay for the privilege of having government control us.

My mixed emotions about Warren arise from various sources, including her recent proposal to outline how she would pay for her government-run Medicare for All plan.

On one hand, she deserves credit for stepping up to the plate to outline an approach on health care rather than continuing to dodge the funding question.

But would her plan work?

I say no.

To arrive at this position, I rely on three perspectives – my own background for 25 years as health care lobbyist in Oregon, a column by the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle, and a Wall Street Journal editorial.

McArdle writes that the “math for Warren’s health care plan adds up if you accept its ludicrous premise.”

“After months of pressure,” McArdle wrote, “Warren finally released her comprehensive Medicare-for-all plan, which promises lower costs for everyone, paid for by taxes on corporations and the rich.

“The good news is, the math adds up, as long as you buy her assumptions. The bad news is that Warren’s assumptions are crazier than keeping a pet rhinoceros, after which, who cares that her calculator works? This is to actual policymaking as the plastic noodles in a ramen-bar window is to lunch.”

And this from Wall Street Journal editorial writers:

“Now we know why Elizabeth Warren took so long to release the financing details of her Medicare-for-All plan. The 20 pages of explanation she released Friday reveal that she is counting on ideas for cost-savings and new revenue that are a fiscal and health-care fantasy.”

Key criticisms revolve around her reductions in what almost every analyst believes is a cost in the range of $30+ trillion – yes, trillion – plus the effect of huge taxes on business, which would reduce the tax payments from business which could re-locate operations, again, overseas to escape the punitive Warren taxes.

In this blog, I don’t intend to summarize all of the deficits in the Warren plan, which will come under the glare of analysis in the next days leading up to the next Democrat presidential debate, if not in the debate itself, not to mention the first vote in the Iowa caucuses.

Rather, I will make two concluding points.

1. Warren’s funding plan creates a new federal entitlement with no way to pay for it – at least no legal way, short of displaying the excellent quote, “it is easy to spend other people’s money” – which Warren does in spades.
2. It is time, as I have posited previously, for public officials on both sides of the aisle, also armed with private sector health policy expertise, to get into a room – yes, there will have to be a round table inside that room – to devise a plan from the center.

No Democrat big government proposal. No Republican “just say no” approach.

I have seen this work in Oregon over the years and it is time for it to be tried again as an illustration that America can still solve pressing public policy problems, such as health care.

So, for whom will I vote in 2020?  Don’t know yet.

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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.

From Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty: “Republicans don’t know how to take yes for an answer.

“For weeks, they dutifully echoed President Trump, baying that the House’s ongoing impeachment investigation is a ‘witch hunt’ and a ‘sham.’

“They have complained that the House never took a formal vote on proceeding with the inquiry (though there is no requirement for one), that it was being conducted in secret (though open hearings are promised), and that the president is not being offered an opportunity to respond to his accusers (though he does it constantly on his Twitter feed).

“On Thursday, they will have the vote they demanded (of course, now the vote is over and the impeachment won), along with a road map for how the inquiry will go from here.

“The procedure as outlined strikes a reasonable balance between the need to collect evidence and testimony, some of which must be done initially behind closed doors, and the transparency necessary for the public to have confidence that something as grave as the impeachment of a president is done fairly.”

Comment: Tumulty criticizes House Republicans for their ham-handed action to infiltrate a House impeachment hearing, using cell phones (which was against policy in the secure hearing room), and, incredibly, ordering pizza as they stopped the hearing.

They did so even as many of their Republican colleagues were members of the three committees holding the hearing and, thus, were already in the room as the stunt occurred.

Tumulty makes this excellent bottom-line point: “Nonetheless, Republicans continue to howl about process. The reason: It allows them to avoid talking about the actual substance of the allegations against Trump.”

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal: “When Trump first came in I would press his supporters on putting all of American military power into the hands of a person with no direct political or foreign-affairs experience or training. They’d say, confidently, ‘But he’s got the generals around him.’

“His gut would blend with their expertise. But though they went to work for him with optimism and confidence in their ability to warn him off destructive actions or impulses—though they were personally supportive, gave him credit for a kind of political genius, and intended to be part of something of which they could be proud—they found they could not. This president defeats all his friends. That’s why he’s surrounded now, in his White House and the agencies, by the defeated—a second-string, ragtag, un-led army.”

Comment: Noonan is right to outline a key difference in the Trump presidency. When it started, accomplished generals signed up to run important national security operations. Now, all of them have left, knowing that Trump cannot run anything as he veers off repeatedly on more Twitter feeds, plus take international actions (read, the retreat from Syria) that risk America’s future.

From David Leonhardt in the New York Times: “Personal attacks don’t hurt him (Trump). Substantive ones do.

“House Democrats are doing the right thing by pursuing impeachment against Trump. But it does create a political quandary for their party.

“Democrats have been most successful against Trump when they have focused on his unpopular policies, as they did during the 2017 fight over ObamaCare and the 2018 mid-terms. They have been least successful when focusing on his outrageous behavior, as Hillary Clinton did in her 2016 campaign.

“Trump’s supporters seem to take his personality as a given and aren’t moved by complaints about it. Some fraction of them, however, can evidently be swayed by his failure to live up to his policy promises.

“Impeachment unavoidably returns the focus to the cartoon version of Trump, the gleefully norm-breaking president who resembles no other. The trial is also likely to end in acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate. Trump will then claim vindication, and Republicans will deride the exercise as a vindictive waste of time and money.

Comment: Leonhardt, in a piece that was clearly labeled “opinion,” emphasizes a useful distinction between substance and Trump’s personality. Go after the first, not the latter.

On the Trump personality issues, I agree with Leonhardt – it appears that Trump supporters always give him a pass on person failures because he does what they want him to do.

I have come to the conclusion that, given Trump’s clear excesses on substance, there was no real choice but for Democrat leaders to begin impeachment. Even if doing so would not result in final conviction in the U.S. Senate, thus allowing Trump to claim vindication in the 2020 election.

Sometimes it is important to rest on honesty and integrity, not bombast.

It is time for leaders in Congress – yes, there are some on both sides of the political aisle – to throw Trump out of office and get back to the important business of governing from the middle.

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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.

This is one of three departments I run with a free hand to operate as director-in-charge. The others are the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering and the Department of Bits and Pieces.

Like Trump, I fancy myself to be a dictator. But, I add with emphasis, in no other way am I like the buffoon who occupies, perish the thought, the Oval Office.

So, here are my new pet peeves.

DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN SUBJECT AND VERB: The Wall Street Journal made a mistake earlier this week when it ran this:

“According to the Urban Institute, a non-profit economic and social-policy research organization, increased costs would outweigh savings. They say the most generous single-payer plan would require between $29 trillion and $34.8 trillion in additional federal revenue over a decade. A “single payer lite” plan excluding undocumented immigrants and imposing cost-sharing on individuals would need between $13.3 trillion and $17.3 trillion.”

Note the word “they.” It should have been the word “it,” which would have agreed with the noun, “the Urban Institute.”

This grammatical mistake is made far too often today. One of the most frequent mistakes is this sentence: “The committee made their decision.” It should be, “Made its decision.” If you like the word “their,” then write the sentence this way – “Committee members made their decision.”

Or, consider this from no less a quality journalist endeavor than the Washington Post. “A number of presidential candidates who signed onto Sanders’ bill in 2017 have since wavered on some of these key components.”

The word “have” should be “has” to comply with the early phrase in the sentence – “A number of presidential candidates…”

Sounds tinny to the ear? Yes. But, it’s right.

Why is this kind of stuff an issue for me? Well, who knows, but one reason is that I am retired and have nothing much else to do – other than, of course, golf.

ANOTHER LANGUAGE ISSUE — TURNING GOOD NOUNS INTO STUPID VERBS: The most recent example is the tendency to turn the word “helm,” a useful noun, into a verb.

An example: “The baseball manager helmed the team to a victory in the World Series.” I didn’t actually see that sentence, but I could have.

You don’t helm something. Helm is what exists, for example, on a ship. It is a noun.

I say leave nouns as nouns and verbs as verbs.

TOO MUCH FOCUS ON TRUMP TWEETS: Since he took office, Trump has tweeted more than 17,000 times. But who is keeping track?

Well, some news outlets are, including the Washington Post. And, on some days, Trump sends so many tweets that it appears he would not have time for anything else. I suppose it could be added that he is at least tweeting, not doing something more risky such as feuding with North Korea.

My pet peeve is this. Why allow Trump to control the flow of “news” on any given day by emoting on his twitter machine? Just ignore what he says because, most of the time, they are lies anyway.

It would be better for journalists to report real news rather than focus on this aspect of Trump.

DEMOCRATS LABELING CORPORATE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS “EVIL,” WHILE FULLY ACCEPTING PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNION CONTRIBUTIONS: Frankly, I am stunned at the duplicity of this contention.

If there is “evil” in political contributions, then the evil rests in all segments, not just in corporations.

An emerging plank in Democrat party platforms, both in Oregon and nationally, is to go after corporations. Of course, some have made huge mistakes; think only of what has happened to Boeing over the last couple years.

But, also know that corporations provide jobs for thousands of citizens who, with jobs, pay taxes to support government. And, on occasion, if those corporations make political contributions, they do not automatically fall into the evil dump.

It’s time for equity in expressing views about political contributions, regardless of the source.

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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.

To read the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) this week, you would suspect the answer the answer would be no – strategic plans in an organization are not much more than pablum.

I beg to differ.

Obviously, a strategic plan that engaged in platitudes and not much else would not be worth the paper on which it was printed or the PowerPoint to display it.

But a solid strategic plan could be worth gold to anyone who was involved in developing it with skill and insight, or who was subject to its provisions.

The worth of a strategic plan depends on how well it was done, as well as the process for producing it — a process that must consider all points of view regardless of position in an organization.

The question in the headline arose when Wyatt Wells, a professor of history at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama, decided to take on strategic plans in a piece he wrote for the WSJ. It appeared under this headline:

Why “Strategic Plans” Are Rarely Strategic – or Effective

Effective managers can list their goals on a note card. They don’t need long recitations of bromides.

My sense is that Wells goes over-board in his criticism.

What he contends can be summarized by this quote:

“The typical strategic plan begins with an anodyne statement of principles, lists several general goals, and finally recounts a series of initiatives that the institution will undertake to realize these objectives. In its statement of principles, Auburn University’s plan asserts that the university seeks ‘to provide quality and diverse educational opportunities,’ offering a ‘student-centered experience ‘with excellence as our standard.’

“These are more specific that Google’s old mantra, ‘Don’t be evil,’ but not much. Presumably, every institution of higher learning shares these goals – none would boast that ‘adequacy is our standard.’”

So, with these words, Wells denigrates all strategic plans because the ones he knows about from his university includes high-sounding phrases with no way to measure success. What Wells doesn’t recognize, even in passing, that strategic plans, if done right, can advance the cause of any organization, public or private.

Several writers of letters to the editor of the WSJ disagreed with Wells, as I do. One headline led the way:

Good Strategic Planning Can Be Productive

The antidote to Wells’ anecdotes is exactly the kind of deeper, more genuine thought and engagement that great strategic planning entails.

The writer said this:

“Wyatt Wells throws the baby out with the bath water. While he cites anecdotes to support his thesis, he neglects to mention that strategic planning, when done well, involves establishing a robust fact base, conducting rigorous analysis, surfacing the most intellectually and emotionally challenging questions for the organization, addressing those questions with genuine thought, integrity and collaboration, and communicating effectively across the organization throughout the process of developing and implementing the plan.”

Excellent points.

For me, a well done strategic plan involves all of the credentials listed above, plus allows those who develop the plan – as well as those affected by it – to ascend to a higher level than just the humdrum and limitations of day-to-day business.

Put another way, the process allows those involved to focus on strategy, not just tactics – to focus on context, not just individual issues. It is easy to fall victim to coming up first with tactics, but, often, with no good way to measure whether the tactics contribute measurably to the higher-end goals.

A friend of mine who consults with business leaders added these thoughts:

“Strategic conversations are critical to moving forward. They release a synergy that cannot be achieved by one person alone. They also add another dimension that is absolutely critical for advancement – engagement of critical partners, expertise, and everyday workers.

“Finally, they better align all parties to shared, common goals.

“What does not seem to be addressed (in the WSJ piece) is the ‘planning’ part of the phrase ‘strategic planning.’  Planning, on a large scale, with lots of time spent on all of the above, in a lengthy, drawn-out, round-and-round process is antiquated today. Instead, we are moving at warp speed, data is abundant, and we lose to others if we are not nimble and forward-focused.”

Over my years in management and consulting (even if those years rank as lesser in status to the credentials of my friend), I often have advised organizations and clients to commit to strategic planning.

I continue to believe it is the right way to go.