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.

Florida governor Ran DeSantis has done some stupid stuff in recent years.

Just ask some Florida as DeSantis has gouged Disney World (a huge provider of jobs and tax revenue in Florida), declared war on school districts, and tried to make universities in his own, bereft image.

But, he exceeded himself yesterday as he went on Twitter to announce his campaign for president.  He did so with Twitter owner Elon Musk sitting by his side.

Wouldn’t you know it, Twitter didn’t work.  Technology went to…well, you know where.

So, there he sat as he and Musk watched and heard Twitter go bang.  Must have reminded Musk of when his attempt to launch his Space X rocket blew up.

If you listened to the Twitter announcement, apparently you couldn’t hear much. 

Let provide assurances that I did not tune in – or try to tune in.  I let the moment pass.

Atlantic Magazine columnist Tom Nichols got it right when he wrote this the day before the Twitter fiasco:

“I am not going to open Twitter this evening to hear Ron DeSantis announce — finally, for real, no joke, this time he means it — his campaign to become the leader of the free world.

“Neither are you, in all likelihood.  Twitter is composed of a tiny fraction of highly engaged social-media users, and most people in America aren’t on the platform.  Even fewer use Twitter Spaces, the audio component of Twitter where users can tune in to a live conversation.

“More to the point, very few of the people Ron DeSantis wants to reach are on Twitter.  Most of them won’t hear any of the conversation, unless somehow the Ron and Elon Show is blasted from loudspeakers in Florida’s retirement mecca, The Villages.

Nichols says he wonders who came up with the “galaxy-brained idea of matching up two of the most socially awkward people in American public life for a spontaneous discussion on Twitter?”

So, beyond the announcement, on to politics for DeSantis.  He seems to think he can win by making war on Disney, attacking public education, and making phobic reactions to anything regarding race, sexuality, or gender. 

Nichols calls all this “performative cruelty aimed at the most socially and politically retrograde voters, which is another way of saying the GOP-base voters who will decide the primaries.”

I share Nichols’ view that the United States would be better off if Donald Trump does not become the presidential nominee of the Republican Party.  His continued support of violent insurrectionists should render him unfit to participate in our elections.

Anyone would be better on the ticket than Trump, and, for me, that includes DeSantis…barely.

“But, Nichols concludes, “DeSantis has learned from Trump that winning the GOP nomination is not about policy.  It’s about playacting.  He knows that the primary faithful want rallies and revenge, costumes, and chaos.”

Which is why I hope a candidate emerges who can grab the “middle” in the country – persons who are tired of the extremes of right and left.

Too much to hope for?  Perhaps.  But I persist.