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.

I would have liked to see Utah U.S. Senator Mitt Romney run as a third-party candidate for U.S. president.

Had he done so, he would not just have run, he would have enjoyed going after Donald Trump for all the stupid, illegal things Trump has done.

McCay Coppins, an Atlantic Magazine writer, wrote a new book soon to be published.  It’s title is “Romney: A Reckoning,” and will be previewed in the November Atlantic.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Coppins put it this way:

“Yet, even as Romney made up his mind to leave the Senate, he struggled to walk away from politics entirely.

“For months, people in his orbit — most vocally, his son Josh — had been urging him to embark on one last run for president, this time as an independent.

“The goal wouldn’t be to win — Romney knew that was impossible — but to mount a kind of protest against the terrible options offered by the two-party system.

“Romney relished the idea of running a presidential campaign in which he simply said whatever he thought, without regard for the political consequences.  

“He nursed a fantasy in which he devoted an entire debate to asking Trump to explain why, in the early weeks of the pandemic, he’d suggested that Americans inject bleach as a treatment for COVID-19.

“Every time Donald Trump makes a strong argument, I’d say, ‘Remind me again about the Clorox.’”

Excellent point.  Romney’s approach would have been a good, down-to-earth way to illustrate the stupid, illegal stuff that should make it easy not to vote for Trump next time around…if, in fact, he gets the Republican nomination.

If Romney was running, I’d vote for him – and wait for the Clorox questions!