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.

If you are a political junkie like me, there often are more reasons for pessimism than optimism about the future of the country.

One of the reasons is that one Donald Trump continues to fulminate about the election President Joe Biden stole from him, as well as suggesting that he, Trump, intends to run for president again in 2024.

But, fulminating is what Trump does.

Then, on Sunday morning, I read a column by Paul Waldman, a columnist who writes for the Washington Post.  It appeared under this headline:

ARE THINGS ABOUT TO GET BETTER? INCREDIBLY, NEW SIGNS SUGGEST THE ANSWER IS YES.

Here is how Waldman started his column:

“Even as Democrats engage in a vigorous round of breast-beating, recrimination and self-flagellation after their predictably poor showing in Tuesday’s elections, there’s one thing they can agree on:  Everything is awful.

“We’re still limping through the coronavirus pandemic, almost two years on.  President Biden’s approval ratings are weak.  Congress is mired in the unsatisfying slog of legislating.”

Then, Waldman, who has been, he says, “relentlessly pessimistic for the last five years or so,” turns optimistic.

“What if things are about to turn around?” he asks.  “For Democrats, but mostly for the country?  What if this is the moment we’ll look back on as a real inflection point?”

Waldman points to several factors that could yield optimism.

• First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly jobs report for October, showing that the economy created 531,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 per cent.  In addition, previous months’ numbers were revised based on more complete data:  The BLS reports that there were 235,000 more jobs created in August and September than had previously been reported.
• Developments on the pandemic front also look promising.  While over a thousand Americans a day are still dying from covid, the vast majority of them unvaccinated, the numbers are heading in the right direction:  New infections are occurring at less than half the rate they were two months ago.
• Meanwhile, Pfizer has announced that a newly developed therapy to be taken early in the onset of covid was shown in a study to reduce hospitalizations by 89 per cent; none of the people taking the drug in the study died.  The therapy is a set of pills patients take at home, making it easy to administer. If it turns out to be as effective as it appears, the result could be a dramatic reduction in deaths.
• Congress enacted “an enormously important” measure when it passed the infrastructure bill.  And, Waldman contended, the “Build Back Better bill” could have demonstrable positive effects on the country and individual Americans’ lives.

For Waldman, putting all of this together “makes it seem like the sun may be emerging from the clouds.”

To be sure, he says, “there are reasons for pessimism, such as the Republican Party showing again the eternal power of the ‘White backlash.’ Democracy is imperiled in much of our country. The Supreme Court is yanking our laws to the right.  We continue to suffer from historic levels of inequality.  Climate change threatens a miserable future for all of us.  Donald Trump is probably going to run for president again.”

But, despite the list in the last paragraph, Waldman advocates optimism.

I do, too, for I prefer to try to find the bright side even when it is easier to focus on the negative.  It never hurts to hope.