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.

I have long argued that compromise is a key part of the definition of good politics.

But, I may be a Pollyanna.  Strike the word “may.”  I am. 

I still believe in the fact that solid solutions to pressing public policy challenges lie somewhere in the middle, not the extreme right or left.

If I didn’t believe middle ground was possible, then I fear for whether we will be able to retain democracy as the form of government in our country.

Ruth Marcus, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, dealt with this subject in a column Saturday, which appeared under this headline:  “Will Biden be able to compromise with Republicans? The glass is three-quarters empty.”

Here are excerpts of what Marcus wrote:

• When it comes to the question of whether President-Elect Joe Biden will find areas of productive compromise with Republicans, the best way to think about the issue may be to ask:  Is the glass one-quarter full or three-quarters empty? In other words, is there a sliver of hope, if not for bi-partisan legislating, then for tamping down the worst of the partisan animosity? And if, as I have reluctantly come to believe, that sliver is thin to the point of invisibility, and should Biden nonetheless proceed as though he holds out hope?
• …Biden took a hopeful tone with CBS’s Stephen Colbert.  “I think I can work with Republican leadership in the House and the Senate,” Biden said.  “I think we can get things done.  And I think, once this president is no longer in office, you’re going to see his impact on the body politic fade and a lot of these Republicans are going to feel they have much more room to run and cooperate.” “I don’t think I’m kidding myself. I got criticized in the beginning for saying this — I think the nation’s looking for us to be united.  Politics has become so sort of dirty and vicious and personal and mean, a clenched fist instead of an open hand, and I think people are looking for us to come together.”
• It is good for Biden to call for unity; leadership has to be aspirational to be effective.  And Biden is no inexperienced Pollyanna.  Barack Obama, in his new autobiography, relates Biden’s sour story of trying to persuade Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) to support a bill he was sponsoring. “You must be under the mistaken impression that I care,” McConnell responded.  Biden knows who he is dealing with on the other side.
• I (Marcus) come to this conclusion as someone who has been an advocate for compromise both as a means to an end and a value in itself.  Who believes the most extreme achievable result — on either side — is not necessarily, indeed probably not, the best outcome?  Who thinks individual Republicans, many of them, are decent people who love their country and have good-faith beliefs about the best way to improve it?
• Republicans have a robust history of prioritizing obstructionism and defeating Democrats over solving the nation’s problems.  Long before Trump’s election, McConnell proclaimed that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”  There can be no doubt that his goal remains the same with Biden, and that he is determined that a Republican replace Biden.

So, who is to blame for the failure to find middle ground solutions – Republicans or Democrats?  I say both.

In a spirit of compromise – not to mention the good of the country we love – I say the time has arrived for both parties to work to find the smart middle.

I hope Biden will lead toward it and I hope he will find followers.  And, I also hope that we, as voters, will reward compromise and pragmatism, not extremism. 

Too much is at stake for any other outcome to prevail.