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.

A win for the ages occurred this weekend when the U.S. House passed the major infrastructure funding bill.

It now goes to President Joseph Biden who will sign it with at least a bit of pomp and circumstance.

Here’s the way the Washington Post heralded the result:

“Less than 10 months after taking office and several days after his party suffered a stinging defeat in the Virginia governor’s race, President Biden achieved one of his main goals:  A bi-partisan agreement that would make major investments in all 50 states for years to come.

“Shortly before midnight on Friday, as the House passed the bill 228-206 with the backing of more than 10 Republicans, Biden’s slumping political fortunes appeared to suddenly change.  After seeing his poll numbers slide for weeks, he had suddenly fulfilled a core campaign promise and notched a significant victory after months of legislative gridlock.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to suggest that we took a monumental step forward as a nation,” Biden said Saturday morning at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris. “We did something long overdue, that has long been talked about in Washington, but never actually done.”

But, to go with the headline on this blog, many Republicans – not the 13 members of the U.S. House who voted for it, but other flamethrowers like Representative Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, not to mention Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – yelled and screamed about how mad they were that their party had a role in giving the Biden Administration a legislative victory.

Or, perhaps a political victory that will lift polling on Biden’s performance as president.

Again, from the Post:

“The bill included lots of popular projects and, in another era, probably would’ve gotten significantly more GOP votes.  But we live in this era, in which delivering a political win for the other side — however popular the bill and however much your constituents might want it — is seen as apostasy.  The demand in the GOP for such devotion to the party line and its election prospects is even greater than on the other side.”

That’s what I mean by grabbing a sense of defeat from the jaws of victory.

Smart Republicans should have heralded the achievement – more and better infrastructure for this country (roads, bridges, rail lines), including for their own districts – instead of griping about a victory for Biden.

All of this is a measure for me about how far our democracy has fallen into disrepute.  There is not even enough room to declare victory, and, then, move on to the next battle.

On that score, there is little doubt be that “next battle” will be fought over a second, larger bill — the $1.85 trillion social welfare and climate change legislation.  A potential deal for Democrats finally materialized late last week when the Congressional Black Caucus proposed passing the infrastructure bill immediately and holding a separate vote on the social bill in mid-November.

You can bet the second vote will be even more acrimonious that the first one.

And, voting on such an expansion of social programs will test both Democrats and Republican, if only because the bill represents a huge expansion of government.  So, in that sense, there will not rank with the potential popularity of infrastructure.