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.

It used to be that one of the standard definitions of politics was that it was “the art of compromise.”

That’s the way governing occurs – through negotiation and compromise.

Not from the extreme right or the extreme left in any democracy, such as exists, sometimes a bit feebly, in the United States.

As I write about this “lost art,” an irony is that Members of Congress produced a compromise in the last few days.  And, President Joe Biden just signed the omnibus – read, “compromise” — piece of legislation that allocated $1.7 trillion – yes, trillion — to keep the government open, to provide more aid to Ukraine, to boost defense spending, and to do a bunch of other stuff.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “a lot of hard work, a lot of compromise.  But we funded the government with an aggressive investment in American families, American workers, American national defense.  It is one of the most significant appropriations packages we’ve done in a really long time.”

Many Republican senators disagreed, but, in a way, that’s the nature of compromise.  Agreement and disagreement.

Based on my 25 years as a state lobbyist, plus about 15 years as a state government manager, here are what I believe to be the major aspects of compromise:

• No one likes all aspects of what is produced.

• All sides have to get and to give something.  That’s the way it works.

• Those who produce compromise must look at the big picture, not just their own viewpoints.

Checking with Mr. Google, here is how the word compromise is defined:

“A compromise is a situation in which people accept something slightly different from what they really want, because of circumstances or because they are considering the wishes of other people.”

In Forbes Magazine, contributor David Davenport wrote this under the headline, “Congress and The Lost Art of Compromise:”

“It is not difficult to identify ‘lost arts’ — things we used to do, but do not do any longer — in Washington, DC:  Civility, bi-partisanship, courage, just to name a few.  But one lost art underlies the others and has led to the inability of Congress to carry out its most basic responsibilities — pass a budget or keep the government open.  The most fundamental lost art of all is the lost art of compromise.”

The fact is that Members of Congress are almost entirely focused on positioning themselves and their party for the next election.  That has become the enemy of compromise. 

The perennial election vs. the art of compromise.

Like most arts, it will not be easy to find compromise again – at least not as the new Congress emerges this year with Republicans in charge of the House and Democrats in charge of the Senate. 

At the most fundamental level, both voters and politicians alike will have to recover a commitment to governing, not just making statements. 

We need leaders who will say, as President Ronald Reagan said to House Speaker Tip O’Neill of the other political party:  “I will take half a loaf today,  but I will come back for the other half tomorrow.” 

Today, everyone wants the whole loaf or nothing — if I can’t get my way, take the highway. 

I, for one, plan to stop voting for candidates who are more committed to their re-election, their party, and their one-word litmus tests than they are to making government work. 

That’s one way to get to the real business of governing, compromise.