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 (Les AuCoin), 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Call it gotcha!

That’s what has happened recently when some well-known politicians were caught violating virus restrictions very soon after they imposed them.

In the Wall Street Journal, columnist William McGurn put it this way:

“Yours truly enjoys a good gotcha as much as the next man.  And it’s easy to mock pols for their blatant hypocrisy when they are caught.  But maybe the more important lesson to be learned here is that hypocrisy is guaranteed when we impose one-size-fits-all mandates that are rigid and unworkable.”

McGurn makes a good point…not just about the “gotcha deal,” but also about the one-size-fits-all approach taken by many governors, including Kate Brown in Oregon.

One of governors who came in for criticism about being a hypocrite was Gavin Newsom in California.

Californians live under some of the tightest Covid-19 restrictions in the nation, so when Newsom was recently caught without a mask at a crowded table for 12 at a posh Napa Valley eatery – it was only a day or so after imposed restrictions on such activity — he instantly became the poster boy for the “Do as I Say, Not as I Do” crowd.

According to the columnist McGurn, he’s hardly the only one.  Not long after Newsom’s visit to the French Laundry was exposed, Californians read about a delegation of their lawmakers who jetted to a Maui resort for a conference as everyone else was being told to avoid non-essential travel.

New Yorkers earlier learned that Mayor Bill de Blasio was working out at his favorite Park Slope YMCA right as he was shutting down the city.  And of course House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot made headlines for sneaking off to get their hair done when barbershops and salons were closed to everyone else.

Now, does a mistake by the likes of Newsom, de Blasio or Pelosi negate all of their actions.

Of course, no.

Do their actions jeopardize their records in office and their ability to get things done.

Of course, yes.

Should we remember their hypocrisy?

Of course, yes…at least for a time to make sure they don’t continue down a hypocritical path.

Now, on to two other issues with the pandemic that represent areas of concern for me.

First, let me say that I have no interest in making decisions about how to control the pandemic and I have sympathy for public officials caught in this challenging problem.  I wouldn’t want their jobs, so I summarize my concerns from the cheap seats in La Quinta, California.

• I have concerns about the one-size-fits all approach, such as is being done in Oregon.  There is no way pandemic restrictions in downtown Portland should be the same as those imposed in far Eastern Oregon.  The same could be said about other states, such as the one I am sitting in now, California.
• I also have concerns that there does not appear, in many cases, to be a direct relationship between the cause for virus spikes and the actions directed to stem the tide.  It is not absolutely clear, for example, that restaurants are “superspreaders,” yet they are singled out for closure, which could mean many of them will go out of business.

In this connection, I was hopeful that a suit by the Oregon Lodging and Restaurant Association contending that Governor Brown had unfairly singled out restaurants for restrictions would go a way toward highlighting this deficit. 

But, a judge ruled yesterday against the Association’s suit, contending simply that the governor was within her rights to impose the restrictions.

Back to McGurn’s Wall Street Journal column:  “Daniel Halperin is an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.  He says he understands why people get upset when politicians are caught doing something they are admonishing everyone else not to do. But as he explains in his recent book, ‘Facing COVID Without Panic,’ he believes a bigger part of the problem has been the reliance on mandates, especially those that have only a marginal impact on the virus’s spread.

“’Many of these mandates and guidelines fixate on behaviors and settings where the actual risk is very low, such as fleeting public encounters, surface-based transmission or beach visits,’ he says in an email. ‘Meanwhile, measures which could have the greatest prevention impact, such as re-engineering buildings to improve air circulation, are still not widely prioritized—not to mention even simpler actions, such as opening windows to allow outdoor air to circulate indoors.’”

McGurn ends his column with a paragraph that resonates with me.  “Certainly leaders ought to live by the same rules they impose on everyone else.  But as we celebrate this Thanksgiving amid the many examples of double standards, maybe we should take them as less a morality tale than a sign we need workable guidelines that even politicians could obey.”