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 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.

Yesterday, I wrote that President Joe Biden may not have a decent chance to run again in advance of the 2024 election, though he maintains that he will do so.

Today, I add to the issue by reprinting a column by Niall Stanage that appeared in my on-line edition of hill.com.

Stanage, a solid reporter and analyst, wrote under this headline:  The Memo:  Democrats cast around for 2024 alternatives to Biden

Here are excerpts from his column:

Democratic gloom is deepening as the party looks toward November’s mid-terms and beyond. 

The bleak outlook is engendered in part by a grim political environment marked by historically high inflation, elevated gas prices, and pandemic fatigue. 

But the Democrat depression is sharpened by concerns over whether President Biden is really the man for the moment, given his advancing age — he turns 80 in November — and his preference for consensus-building over the frontal political combat many in his party would prefer.

Yet, for all that, Biden has one sizable factor weighing in his favor.  There’s no clear-cut rival who could steal the 2024 mantle away from him.

The appetite for change is obvious.  A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week found just 26 per cent of Democrats wanted Biden to carry the party’s banner again in 2024.  Sixty-four per cent would prefer someone else to be the party’s nominee. 

There’s just no agreement on who that someone might be. 

Many Democrats are reluctant to speak ill of an incumbent president on the record.  But there is no mistaking the black mood.

“Biden should not be and cannot be the nominee in 2024,” said one Democrat strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly.  “It’s as obvious as day to anyone who is being objective and honest that the president is too old to be president.  It’s that simple.”

Yet, the same strategist lamented that “there is no bench. That’s the catastrophic thing.”

It’s not as if there is a shortage of Democrats who might see themselves in the top job — even if some of them need Biden to step aside first.

The clearest example is Vice President Kamala Harris.  The first woman and the first Black person to serve in her role, she would be the obvious option if Biden opted against running for a second term.

But Harris is beset by her own problems, including approval ratings that are not appreciably better than her boss’s, an indifferent performance in office, and memories of an underwhelming 2020 presidential campaign.

Other high-profile options include a raft of figures who also contested the 2020 nomination, such as Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar, as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager put out a memo in April underlining that the Vermonter had not ruled out another run for presidency, though he was equally clear that he would not subject Biden to a primary.

But Sanders is older than Biden, would be running for the presidency for a third time, and faces the perennial questions about the electability of a self-proclaimed democrat socialist.

Warren, Klobuchar and Buttigieg all have their fervent supporters, but they all also have vulnerabilities.  The arguments against each can be boiled down as too far left, too uninspiring, and too inexperienced, respectively.

Some Democrats are casting an eye toward governors and other figures who have not yet become national figures.

For now, Biden repeats that he intends to run again. A proud man, he bristles at suggestions that his party might cast him aside.

**********

And, this footnote.  Essayist Lance Morrow wrote this in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“Mr. President, if you’re sick of people talking about how old you are, think how I feel.  You’re only 79. I’m 82 — three years down the trail ahead of you.  You’re still a kid, though it is true that, crossing the White House lawn, you walk like the Tin Woodman in need of a squirt of lubrication. Falling off the bike wasn’t a good look either.  I wish you’d remember that after 75 the best hope is enigmatic dignity — elder statesman, grandfather knows best, Konrad Adenauer, that sort of thing.  Think gravitas. By the way, you need a new tailor.  The suits are too tight.  You’re not 24.”

I share Morrow’s perspectives on getting old, for I am old, too.  For Biden’s own health – and perhaps his reputation, as well — I hope he finds a way to step aside graciously.  Then, I also hope Democrats can identify someone who can assure that Trump will not be in the nation’s highest office again.