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.

As we enter a new year, one in which we will be voting for president, I ask, what is the alternative to Donald Trump who stands, for me, as the worst president in U.S. history?\

One problem is that Trump’s excesses are exactly what draws many voters to him. He spreads dissension, then capitalizes on that dissension and Trumpians follow him hook, line and sinker.

In the headline to this blog, I write the word “if” in regard to voting in the 2020 election. But the fact is that I will be voting.

I’m just not sure for whom.

Of one thing, I am sure. My vote will not go to Trump.

He cannot be trusted to put the country’s good ahead of his own. The impeachment process, now grinding forward in Washington, D.C., shows the extreme extent of his misdeeds, though his defenders in the U.S House and Senate continue to sing his praises in an apparent effort to curry political favor from him.

Here is the way Washington Post editorial writers put it in assessing the affirmative House vote on impeachment:

“…it is our view that more than enough proof exists for the House to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, based on his own actions and the testimony of the 17 present and former administration officials who courageously appeared before the House Intelligence Committee.”

Because the U.S. Senate is not likely to convict Trump –- if there even will be a Senate trial as leaders in the House and Senate cannot agree on a process for it, as they have just returned from a Christmas break — the chances are that Trump will be on the ballot in 2020.

We don’t know who the standard bearer will be for Democrats, nor whether any third-party candidate will rise to the occasion, though the latter is not likely.

A new development is roiling the presidential sweepstakes. It is Trump’s decision to take out an Iran military leader who, it is clear, had murdered many Americans over the last years in that war-torn region. Still the take-out decision prompted many to question both the decision and Trump’s ability to manage the inevitable consequences of it.

In the Washington Post this morning, columnist Joe Scarborough contends that no one should count on Trump’s ability because of his “ignorance.” “The danger posed by that ignorance,” Scarborough wrote, “is matched daily by the crises created by Trump’s own erraticism. His performance as commander in chief has been shaped by a collection of scattered grievances, emotional impulses and random tweets. As the Financial Times’ Philip Stephens had said of Trump’s foreign policy, ‘Looking for a framework is like searching for symmetrical patterns in a bowl of spaghetti.’”

So, all things considered, I won’t vote for Trump. If a far left Democrat such as Senators Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren is on the ballot, I won’t vote for that person either.

I might have to throw away my vote, which might end up being the ethical action to take.

While all of this is pending, here are the types of credentials I would look for in a candidate to lead the free world as U.S. president:

• Someone who works to tell the truth, striving for accuracy and context.
• Someone who puts the good of the nation ahead of personal aggrandizement.
• Someone who works to find the smart middle on pressing public policy issues, not just a position that serves his or her base or political party.
• Someone who demonstrates an ability to disagree agreeably.
• Someone who capitalizes on private sector experience for the public sector good.
• Someone who reads and studies to illustrate an intent to grasp history and policy.

Sound like the buffoon in the White House? No.

Sound like the far-left candidates who want to make the U.S. into a government-run enterprise? No.

But this is type of person I would look for vote when the time comes to vote later this year.