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, remember is one of three departments I run with a free hand to do as I wish.

If that sounds like Donald Trump, forgive me.

I disavow any comparisons between me, a solid citizen, and Trump, an obviously un-solid one, if he, in fact, can be called a citizen in the first place.

Back to bits and pieces.

POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS: The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) made a good point this week when it wrote this:

“So vast is the wealth generated by the U.S. market economy that in 2019 Americans could afford to spend nearly $100 million just on a campaign to criticize it. Actually, the presidential campaign of Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders isn’t the only one dedicated to attacking the free choices of free people. But among the contenders for the Democratic nomination, the Marxist millionaire is the king of campaign cash.”

Comment: Sanders and his kin on the left wing side of the Democrat presidential sweepstakes, Senator Elizabeth Warren, make a habit of decrying the fact that many people in this country have managed to accumulate wealth by dint of hard work and effort.

Call it capitalism, a word that does not cross of lips of Sanders, Warren and those on the far left who advocate socialism – or least a government in charge of all things.

Of course, duplicity reigns when they seek political contributions from those with money even as they lodge harsh criticisms of the same people.

2020 PRESIDENTIAL SWEEPSTAKES: Also from the Wall Street Journal:

“As 2020 begins, voters who say that their overriding objective is to remove the current president should wonder: Is it wise to hitch their wagons to any candidate whose agenda radiates, and requires, extravagant confidence in government’s ability to radically rearrange the United States’ most complex processes, from the allocation of economic resources to the provision of health care?

“Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is showing remarkable resilience, coronary and political, after his October myocardial infarction. This is encouraging not because the nation should swap one form of economic illiteracy for another, replacing a florid, angry protectionist with a florid, angry socialist. Rather, it is encouraging because Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren continue to divide, more or less evenly, the “let’s give government lots more to do” constituency. The longer this balance persists, the more time that normal — meaning not very agitated or attentive — voters have to rally around candidates who do not make prudent people wince.”

Comment: Great point by the WSJ. Americans who don’t pander to either side of political debate want someone who “doesn’t make them wince.” They want someone with character in the Oval Office – character and credentials to lead the country in a solid direction…neither far right nor far left. But the center.