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.

Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman performed a service by writing under the headline that leads this blog:  “Six things people believe about political that are totally wrong.”

Here is how he started his column:

“Like many billionaires, Elon Musk apparently sees himself as a genius, not only in areas where he has real experience, but in all things, including politics and government.  Which is why he tweeted this about the omnibus spending bill Congress passed last month,” contending that no one who voted had read the entire bill, which ran 4,000 pages long.

“This,” Waldman continued, “is a common type of misinformation, one that swirled about with particular intensity regarding the omnibus bill.  Not that Musk doesn’t believe it; I’m sure he does.  His tweet shows how easy it is to be seduced by ideas that have intuitive appeal, but are completely wrong.”

As explained below, Waldman says reading the technical language of bills is not necessary.  A deep understanding of a piece of legislation is necessary, not reading the lawyer-drafted words.

It would be possible for a thoughtful person to disagree with some of Waldman’s posits (outlined below), but, overall, his list is insightful.

However, I would have added one more point to his list:  A major issue seasoned political observers like me get right about politics. 

This:  We need more men and women in politics who will enter the fray, not to aggrandize themselves by, figuratively, yelling on the street corner, but by setting out to do the people’s business, which is to oversee good government.  Which often means solutions in the middle, not the extremes of right or left.

That said, here is Waldman’s list of wrong perceptions.

1. “If members of Congress read bills before voting on them, legislation would be better.”

How could anyone oppose that?  But the truth is that most legislators usually don’t read the text —and that’s fine.  It isn’t because they’re lazy. It’s because legislation involves a specialized type of language, written by experts for purposes that have nothing to do with understanding and wise decision-making.  Members should know exactly what they’re voting on, but the text of bills is only tangentially related to that goal.

•  “If only we stopped wasteful spending, we’d solve most of our problems.”

Waste is bad, after all. And there is plenty of waste in government, just as there’s waste in pretty much every corporation and non-profit organization everywhere.

But when someone rails against wasteful spending, they seldom specify exactly which spending is supposedly wasteful.

If you press them, they’ll probably cite either spending that’s utterly trivial — some silly-sounding program that spent a few hundred thousand dollars somewhere — or spending that is quite important, but they don’t happen to like.  Some people think Medicaid is “wasteful,” but the tens of millions of Americans who count on it likely disagree.

•  “My family balances its budget.  Why shouldn’t the government?”

The reason is that the government is not a family or a household.  For instance, when times are tough, deficits do, and should, go up.  That’s because the government brings in less revenue and must do more to help people.  If the government slashed spending during every recession to balance the budget, it would only make things worse.

•  “Government should be run like a business.”

But government isn’t a business.  It’s not an enterprise devoted to obtaining profits.  It does many things that cost money but don’t produce a financial return, like delivering mail to far-flung rural addresses or caring for the sick.

Comment:  While I agree with Waldman’s basic point, I also think it would be helpful if government officials realized, at least on occasion, that money doesn’t grow on trees.  If they had to consider the source of the money – often taxpayers — decisions would be better.

•  “The parties need to stop the partisan squabbling and get things done.”

This is an incredibly common idea, one driven by the presumption that political differences are meaningless.  But especially in our polarized age, political differences are incredibly meaningful.

Partisans “squabble” over questions such as whether abortion should be legal, whether taxes for the wealthy should go up or down, what to do about climate change, whether to extend health coverage to more people and whether workers deserve higher pay, to name just a few.

There aren’t non-partisan answers to these questions just waiting to be seized if people would put aside party loyalties.  Those loyalties are driven by deeply held values, and, a lot of the time, conservative and liberal values aren’t compatible.

Comment:  Same as above.  While there aren’t easy non-partisan solutions lying around, we need legislators who will work to find the smart middle.

•  “We need more people in Congress who aren’t politicians.”

You hear this often from first-time candidates, who present their lack of qualifications as their key qualification.  Yes, politicians are prey to some bad tendencies — self-aggrandizement, cravenness, short-term thinking — but, just as you wouldn’t hire an accountant to rewire your house or an electrician to do your taxes, you need people who understand politics and policy to deal with political and policy questions.

So, all in all, a good list.  Agree or disagree, it’s worthy of consideration and reflection.