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.

It was bound to happen.  The only question was when.

What is the “it?”

A major media story on the chief of staff for President Joseph Biden. 

Chiefs of staff for a president always garner major coverage at some point because it is not an exaggeration to say that a chief of staff is one of the most powerful positions in the federal government.  Perhaps even the #2 person in terms of power and influence.

I always have been very interested in chief of staff positions, having seen some good ones in Washington, D.C. and several who failed miserably – and a number of the failures worked – or, shall we say, worshipped — at the feet of Donald Trump.

In this connection, I recommend an excellent book on this subject – The Gatekeepers:  How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.  It is by Chris Whipple and, for political junkies like myself, it is worth reading as a detailed look into how government functions at the highest levels.

Two of the chapters deal with one of the persons whom everyone, reasonable Republicans and Democrats alike, agree was one of the best chiefs of staff in history, James Baker III.  He served both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, with a distinctive ability to marshal the forces of politics and facts in equal measure, which earned him his own book, as well as a stint as Secretary of the Treasury.

So, we come to the chief of staff for President Biden, Ron Klain.

Here’s the way Washington Post reporters Sean Sullivan and Tyler Pager started their story on Klain, the first major one on Klain I have seen after a year in the chief of staff job:

“As Joe Biden closed in on the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, top advisers approached him with a careful process for choosing and vetting a potential White House chief of staff.  Biden cut them short, pointing to one man whose experience in government outstripped anyone else:  ‘I want Ron.’

“But throughout his first year on the job, Ron Klain and his sterling credentials have repeatedly bumped against the unusual challenges of governing in today’s Washington.”

Klain faces the same challenges other chiefs of staff have faced over the years.  That includes attempting to manage or corral the ever-increasing size of the federal government.  It also includes playing gatekeeper for a president, which means setting out to decide which issues make it to the president’s desk and which do not.

And, now, it includes the pandemic.

According to Sullivan and Pager:

• Klain drew the ire of two key Democrats in Congress, antagonizing Senator Joe Manchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi amid disputes over legislative strategy and policy.  However, Klain maintains that he has good relationships with both and, despite differences, knows how to work with them.
• On the single biggest challenge facing the White House — battling the pandemic — Klain at times was reported to have irked the administration’s top official in charge of the coronavirus response, pushing that official, Jeff Zients, and his team to move faster in ways they found counterproductive.  Klain and Zients have denied any tension.
• Among the strongest criticisms of Klain are some from certain Democrats who say he has forged an alliance with the party’s left that has undercut Biden’s effectiveness and hurt the president’s political image.
• Many complaints center on negotiations with Capitol Hill over Biden’s agenda this past fall, with many Democrats charging that Klain acceded too often to the demands of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

At the same time, Klain, is praised by many in the White House and on Capitol Hill for his responsiveness and organizational abilities, and most important, is said by close associates of President Biden to retain the president’s confidence.

One senator, Richard Blumenthal, put it this way:

“I think that, by and large, he’s making the trains run on time — even though some of the boxcars may seem to be empty some of the time.”

One of the Biden’s Administration successes was passage of a landmark infrastructure package – and even some of his detractors believe Klain gets at least some credit for the positive result, which was underlined yesterday as Biden traveled to Pittsburgh to tout the bill just hours after a major bridge collapsed.

Finally, Sullivan and Pager summarize their story on Klain this way:

“Few chiefs of staff have entered the job facing such daunting challenges, and if nothing else, Klain is credited by many with quickly restoring order to a government that had been engulfed in chaos and recrimination.  Given the wreckage left by the Trump presidency, his supporters say, simply reestablishing traditional practices was itself an accomplishment.”

I agree.

In Oregon, I have worked with a few chiefs of staff for an Oregon governor.

One of the best, if not the best, was Gerry Thompson, who served as chief of staff for the last Republican governor in Oregon, Vic Atiyeh.  I worked for Thompson and she did more than “make the trains run on time.”

She played a major role in most public policy issues, yielding to the governor, of course, but asserting her own perspective.  One of the best examples was when, with the governor, she led Oregon’s fight against the Rajneesh cult, which threatened to try to take over Eastern Oregon, committing several major crimes along the way.

All of us in the Governor’s Office played a role in that successful defense against the Rajneesh offensive, but Gerry led the way.  My role?  Well, I often conferred with Gerry about a source we had within the Rejneesh camp who alerted us to crimes under way.  I also coordinated the State of Oregon’s response to the Rajneesh action to dump homeless persons in Oregon, register them to vote, and, thus, try to control who won elective office, at least in Portland…all with Gerry’s wise counsel.

As a lobbyist, I also related to two chiefs of staff of staff to Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber.  One was Bill Wyatt, the son of an Oregon Congressman.  The other was Tim Imeson, who cut his teeth working for Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield in Washington, D.C.

Both exemplified an important credential for a chief of staff – approachability.  But both also displayed another credential – listening, but not committing a governor to a specific action, turf better left to the governor. 

Overall, this also was an important credential:  Striking the delicate balance between politics and policy.

Back to the federal scene.  It will be interesting to see how long Klain lasts in the chief of staff job.  It is an insane job, one reason for which is that there are not hours of work.  You always are on call.

Stamina is, thus, a major issue.  Both for Klain and for his boss, Biden.