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.

Forgive me for writing about myself.  Better, I guess, that another blog devoted to Donald Trump.

But, with time on my hands these days, I have found myself recalling my experience as a state lobbyist.

One of the memories are some of the sayings I used to advocate for my clients.

Here is a brief summary (I thought of only three; no doubt more will come to mind as I look back over my 25 years as a lobbyist):

• That’s the first step down a slippery slope:  This was a phrase I sometimes used to indicate that doing one thing could lead to another thing and the result would be the bad news of falling to the bottom.  I advocated, don’t take the first step.

• That’s like a circular firing squad:  This was a phrase I used – not very often, perhaps – to indicate that taking a certain action without adequate thought could lead to more than one victim.

• That’s like ready, shoot, aim:  Similar to the phrase above, this was meant to indicate that a proposed action had not been vetted sufficiently.

Your word is your bond:  This was less a saying than an aspiration.  I conclude with the phrase because I thought it was a good mark of a successful, effective lobbyist – someone you could trust to stick to his or her word.

Think of this phrase.

It would be good if it marked, not only lobbyists, but legislators, as well.  Not to mention all of us in society.