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.

This is nearly a truism in politics:  When one party is in charge in the federal government or a state capitol, it is easy for those in charge to go too far to advance their cause. 

Which gives the other side an opportunity to catch up or take control on their own.

If you are in charge, the moral is to use your majority in a smart way rather than in a way that gives aid and comfort to the other side.  Further, those in charge should find a way to take bi-partisan actions that will encourage voters who want good government.  That could pay off politically.

Consider two examples.

The first is the Biden Administration, along with Democrat leaders in Congress. 

There is an emerging consensus that the president and Congress are moving too far and too fast toward what, in the past, would have been described as “liberal” positions.  Today, the political lexicon calls it moving too far left to the abode of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Which is too far for many Americans.

Thus, it is possible Democrats may lose control of the U.S. House and Senate in the mid-term elections next year.  Biden, after those elections, will have two more years in his first term.

Further, Wall Street Journal commentator Daniel Henninger suggested that Biden has “bungled his first crisis.”   By that, Henninger was referring to a comment from former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel who said, “you never want a crisis to go to waste” if you involved in politics.

A crisis, Emanuel said, is “an opportunity to do things that you could not do before.”

For Biden, the crisis is the pandemic and, in that and other “crisis-type” issues, the Administration has chosen to “go big.”  It is a tactic that could cost them the smart middle – voters who wanted a relief from Donald Trump and a return to a “normal” president who focuses on getting things done in a bi-partisan fashion without resorting to Twitter diatribes.

Henninger wrote this. “The questions are everywhere this week: Has Biden wasted his crisis?  Are the Democrats on course to lose the House next year (and not beyond imagining, the Senate)?  Is the Biden agenda disappearing up the flue of Joe Manchin’s chimney (a reference to Senator Manchin who won’t give up supporting the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass anything in a 100-member Senate).?”

“My short answers,” Henninger adds, “are yes, yes and yes.”

In the second example, I cite the Oregon Legislature.  Control now is firmly in the hands of Democrats.  The fact is that it may not be possible for the Legislature to move too far left because Democrats are likely to retain control of the Legislature, as well as the Governor’s Office, for the foreseeable future.

It’s a function of the fact urban legislators control the process, illustrating that there are still “two Oregons” – the urban one and the rural one.

Just ask several Eastern Oregon counties that want to become part of Idaho because leaders in those counties have said “they don’t recognize Oregon any longer.”  The fact is that secession probably will not be possible, given all that is involved, including an act of Congress.  But, still, the instinct to leave persists.

Meanwhile, legislators are driving toward the constitutionally mandated end-of-the-session under the leadership of two Democrats – House Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate President Peter Courtney, with the Democrat governor, Kate Brown, holding court in her middle-of-the-Capitol office for two more years.

Kotek could decide to run for governor in two years after several terms as House Speaker.  Courtney, for his part, could recede into the sunset as the longest serving legislator in Oregon history.

Still, going too far always risks building a majority that can be sustained, as well as one that can appeal to voters who want success, not just extremes.