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.

In an essay in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Joseph Epstein hit the nail on the head, to use a hackneyed phrase.  I borrowed his headline, which appeared over his essay, for this blog.

Here is the sub-head:

“In the governor’s campaign, heads Illinois loses; tails, it also loses. Ditto in the last two presidential races.”

That’s exactly the way I often feel when it comes time to vote.  Heads you lose.  Tails you losse. 

Like Epstein, “I am one of those American political misfits known as an independent voter.”

Epstein add this:

“I voted for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008.  Four years later I pulled the lever for Mitt Romney.  I didn’t vote in the last two presidential elections because none of the candidates were people I wanted to lead the country.  I find little reassuring in either of the political parties, whose members collectively strike me as ignorant, sanctimonious, meshugana.”

Which is a word I have not heard before.  Here, according to the dictionary is what it means:  “Nonsense; silliness; craziness; garbage; a person who is silly or crazy; a jackass.”

And Epstein continues:

“My non-affiliation frees me from the obligation to defend the nuttiness of Marjorie Taylor Greene or the anti-Semitism of Ilhan Omar.  I like to think it also provides a certain perspective unavailable to those locked into party loyalty.”

When I told a friend of mine the other day that I was toying with not voting in a particular race here in Oregon, he said avoiding a vote was “unethical.” 

I strongly disagree.  Not voting in a particular actually is, for me, an ethical decision.

It indicates that I cannot, in good faith, support either candidate whose name appears on the ballot.

So, for me, that leaves two ethical options – not voting or writing in someone’s name.

To buttress his own “independent” stance, Epstein says this:

“All I look for in candidates is that they constitute a lesser evil than their opponents.  Evidence of this often isn’t easily detected.  In the current race for Illinois governor, which pits incumbent J.B. Pritzker against state Senator Darren Bailey, detection of the lesser evil is all but impossible.  In a recent televised debate, each man called the other a liar, which struck me as one of the few times that evening when both of them told the truth.

“When it comes to voting for one or the other of these Periclean figures, I must remember to bring along a coin when I step into the voting booth. Heads Illinois loses; tails, it also loses.”

For me, voting is exactly what a citizen should do in every election.  It is a hallmark of citizenship.

But, one’s own ethical standards should be paramount.  And, if that means, not voting in a particular race, so be it.

I report this after having in Oregon’s election.  So what is done is done.