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 what I wrote earlier this week, I should have given the new governor credit for this:

• In her “Recommended Budget for 2023-25,” she did not just propose a bunch of numbers.

• Rather, she proposed “policy priorities” and then summarized how to fund them.

That doesn’t mean her recommendations will emerge unscathed in the Oregon Legislature.  It just means that, based on her work, it is at least possible that lawmakers also will focus on policy, not just numbers.

Such policies as affordable housing.  Dealing with homelessness.  What “quality education” means.  Improving health care and human services programs.  Etc.

That’s what supposed to happen with a “Governor’s Recommended Budget.”  It did this time.

We’ll see how Kotek’s proposals fare in the next five months at the Capitol.  Usually, about 80 per cent of what a governor recommends survives and she also has the benefit of a Legislature controlled by Democrats.

So, with this post, I correct my omission.