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 opened one of three departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit – the Department of Pet Peeves.

Today, demonstrating my supreme management ability, I open another of “my” departments – the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.  [The third department, by the way, is the Department of “Just Saying.”]

So, the Good Quotes Department is open again.

FROM PAUL WALDMAN IN THE WASHINGTON POST:

“I wouldn’t be surprised if U.S. Senator Ben Sasse thought he was perfectly positioned for a future in his party after 2020:  Trump lost badly, then discredited himself with the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and surely the GOP would want to rid itself of Trump and all he represented.

“Sasse was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial.

“Instead, Sasse’s party is as firmly committed to Trump as ever.  And apart from the occasional story of someone being asked to leave a restaurant or young Trump staffers being unable to find dates, there hasn’t been much accountability for those who served him, promoted him, and made clear their own moral depravity by defending him.

“Because so much of the GOP was invested in Trump, it was in its interest to make sure no one would suffer from the moral stain of their connection to him.  And had Sasse wanted a think tank sinecure or some corporate board seats, no one would have protested.  But he tried to step back into academia, where liberals have plenty of power.

“All of which shows that while Trump contaminates everything he touches, the irony is that the more you were willing to drink his Kool-Aid, the less damage that contamination did to you.  The Republicans facing the biggest consequences are the people like Sasse who didn’t really want to be a part of it.”

COMMENT:  Sasse tried to do what was right in the Senate and got black marks from Trump and his minions for doing so.  Now, as the main contender for the presidency of the University of Florida – he is fully qualified for such a position – he is being black-balled by students who contend he has not been “woke” enough on such issues as gay rights and same-sex marriages.

He can’t win, though the Board at the University of Florida may still go through with his appointment.

FROM BENJAMIN DREYER IN THE POST:  [Random House executive managing editor and copy chief.]

“Now, it’s a common misapprehension that ‘editing’ is a synonym for ‘deleting.’  Yes, by all means trim away what I call the Throat-Clearers and Wan Intensifiers — ‘to be sure,’ ‘that said, ‘of course,’ ‘in sum,’ ‘rather,’ ‘actually,’ and, ‘very.’

“But I have learned that prose often benefits from the cushioning of a few extra words — for rhythm, for sense, sometimes simply to counter the airlessness of sentences that are so straitened they can’t breathe.”

COMMENT:  I think Dreyer is right.  Words matter, as in his phrase, “for rhythm, for sense, sometimes simply to counter the airlessness of sentences that are so straitened they can’t breathe.”

I often remember when a former business partner of mine counseled that fewer words were better than more.  Possibly.  But the word “rhythm,” a key part of writing, often depends on the use of more words not less.

The most basic key:  Work to make sure your words deliver the message you want them to deliver, with rhythm, style, and personal tone.

DICK HUGHES IN HIS “CAPITAL CHATTER” COLUMN:

“Doug Moore, of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, says Oregon often is mischaracterized as a very blue state when it’s actually purplish.

“Ah, be wary of the political stereotypes placed on any region.  Oregon’s status on the political spectrum varies according to the political contest, Republicans’ ability to field high-quality candidates, and the strength of their campaign structure and funding.

“Democrats have won 31 of the 33 statewide partisan elections since 2002. Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and U.S. Senator Gordon Smith were the lone Republican victors during those 20 years.

“With three strong candidates, it remains probable that a minority of voters will elect Oregon’s next governor.  Any of the three could yet win.”

COMMENT:  Hughes, former editorial page editor of the Salem Statesman Journal, has it right when he discounts labels in politics and says results often rest on the quality of candidates, not party label.

Whatever your set of beliefs this time around in the Oregon governor’s race, there is a real race here.  Any of three candidates could win.

The same is true, by the way, in another “purple” state, Washington.  There, long-time Democrat Patty Murray is in the race of her political career against a candidate from Eastern Washington, thus illustrating what is true both in Oregon and Washington – there are “two-Oregons” and there are “two Washingtons,” urban and rural…and rarely do the two ever meet or agree.