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.

Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty put it very well in a column she wrote yesterday:

“That a reality-show president has been replaced by one grounded in reality was apparent Tuesday night, when President Biden had his first extended conversation with average Americans since his election.

“’I don’t want to overpromise anything here,’ Biden said, speaking frankly about vaccinations, Covid relief and more.”

In an understatement, Tumulty said the scene represented a clear conflict with Donald Trump.

“It was quite a contrast from last March when, as the U.S. coronavirus death toll rose toward 600, then-president Trump blithely promised that happier times were just around the corner.

“I think Easter Sunday, and you’ll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And it’s just about the timeline that I think is right,” Trump declared, mentioning a holiday that was less than three weeks away.”

That “timeline” turned out to be a fantasy, Tumulty wrote. The pandemic went on to kill nearly 490,000 Americans and disrupt almost every aspect of everyday life for almost a year, which ought to be accounted to Trump’s legacy.

Biden’s choice to be in Wisconsin was intentional.  It was a state he won by only about 20,000 votes.  His main goal was to make a pitch for his $1.9 trillion economic relief package, which does not appear to be picking up Republican support on Capitol Hill, though it is broadly popular with the public and among GOP mayors and governors.

In other appeals to the idea of bi-partisans action, plus talking honestly with Americans, which has marked Biden’s long career in public service, Tulmulty wrote:

• Biden also signaled, no doubt to the disappointment of more liberal Democrats, that he would be willing to scale back some parts of his plan.  For instance, the president told a worried small-business owner that concerns about Biden’s proposal to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour were “totally legitimate,” and he said he might be willing to graduallyphase in an increase.
• Even as the president pointed to brighter days ahead, he sought to temper expectations as to how fast the country can get there.
• How soon will every American who wants one be able to get a vaccine?  Enough will be available “by the end of July,” Biden said.  But he made no guarantees that a distribution system would be in place by then to deliver those shots.
• How soon before schools reopen for in-person classes five days a week?  For kindergarten through eighth grade, by the end of April,he said, but cautioned, “It’s going to be harder to open up the high schools.”
• And when will things feel normal again?  “By next Christmas, I think we’ll be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are today,” the president said.

Normalcy appears to have returned, at least in the Oval Office.  There, as well as on the road, Biden talks truth. Instead of Trump’s denialism, we have a president who promises, “I will always level with you.”  A narcissist in chief has been replaced by someone to whom empathy comes naturally.

Tumulty closes:  “Biden appears to understand that the country cannot move forward until it puts Trump in the rearview mirror.”

Agreed as I counsel myself to look backward if only because I want to see Trump.