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.

Rather than build toward a conclusion, I’ll start with it.

My fond hope is that someone other than Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination for president. 

We don’t need any more of Trump’s bombast, narcissism, and failure to abide by laws of the land.

So, here’s hoping that Nicki Haley can rise to the challenge.

Washington Post Columnist Jennifer Rubin agrees with me, or perhaps I agree with her.

Here is what she wrote the other day:

Error! Filename not specified.

“Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has taken on the unmistakable aura of a loser.  Vivek Ramaswamy has proved to be an annoying, incoherent dilettante.  Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie simply has not caught on with GOP voters.  And neither Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin nor any other white knight has emerged to save the Republican Party from itself.

“That means only one Republican presidential candidate with the ability to dislodge Donald Trump remains:  Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.”

As Politico reported recently, “Haley is benefiting from this recent surge of support.  She is now polling ahead of DeSantis in New Hampshire, the first primary state, and in her home state of South Carolina.  One recent survey showed her running neck and neck with DeSantis in Iowa.”

Establishment donors (including the Koch network) are also shifting her way.

“’In recent weeks, a number of chief executives, hedge fund investors and corporate dealmakers from both parties have begun gravitating toward. Haley and, in some cases, digging deeper into their pockets to help her,’ the New York Times reported.  

“Her ascent in the polls and strong debate performances have raised hopes among Republicans hungering to end the dominance of former President Donald J. Trump that maybe, just maybe, they have found a candidate who can do so.

“That hardly makes her a likely winner, not with a majority of the primary electorate seemingly locked in for Trump.  But it does make her the only candidate in the primary who does not pose an existential threat to democracy and who has a chance to disable Trump.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Rubin adds.  “Haley is an unabashed opportunist who has never fully denounced Trump.  She even suggested she might pardon him.   She’s enamored of trickle-down economics and more tax cuts for the rich.  And her views on abortion are anathema to those who want women to retain first-class citizenship and control over their own lives.

“However, the question is not whether Americans strongly inclined to vote for President Biden would vote for her in the general election.  The question is whether, if she managed to topple Trump, she would break with the MAGA cult of personality, decline to bow and scrape before Russian President Vladimir Putin, decline to weaponize the Justice Department against her enemies, and return to some version of normal Republican politics.

“All indications suggest that, yes, she would refrain from subverting constitutional democracy if she somehow won the nomination and went on to win the presidency.”

At this moment, far from the election, it is not clear that Haley has the chops to win the Republican nomination.  But she got a dose of good news the other day when New Hampshire Governor John Sununu endorsed her presidential bid.

Some observers had hoped that Sununu would run himself, but he passed on the “opportunity.”

I don’t agree with Halen on many of her policy stands, but one center fact is true:  She is better than Trump – which isn’t saying much – but she might be the only Republican who can still beat Trump.

If I was a Republican and not an independent, I would vote for her.