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.

What Republicans in the U.S. House are saying is that we should wait for the next election to make a decision on Donald Trump.

It may be a good sound bite, but it doesn’t make sense.

For this simple reason: Trump has demonstrably indicated that his approach is to cheat to win the next election and there is little doubt but that, even with the impeachment process moving forward, he’ll continue to do anything to cheat in order to win.

So, we can vote in an unfair election!

No.

While the conventional wisdom is that impeachment won’t move to conviction in the Senate, I say let the process go forward. The more we know about Trump’s unethical, dishonest actions, the more the misdeeds and distortions might come home to roost against him in the 2020 election, even if not the U.S. Senate.

Is it possible to have a second bottom line? Perhaps not, but I have one anyway.

It is this. There is little question but that Trump abused his office by advancing his own personal (political) interests ahead of the national interest. That, to me, warrants conviction. Frankly, it’s hard to think of something more severe – putting yourself as president before the country.

Trump should be sent packing.