Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

• Liar.

• Cheater.

• Stealer.

• Rapist.

• Seditionist.

With that pedigree – and especially Donald Trump’s shabby treatment of women — I ask this question:  Why would rational human beings vote for the guy.

About 20 years ago or so, anyone with that list of offenses, some of them worth jail time, would not be able to run for president, not to mention winning such a race.

Trump did, but then, when he lost his re-election bid, he tried to stay in power by force and violence.

Which is not the America most of us know.  But it’s the one Trump favors.

So, exercise conscience and don’t vote for him again – if only because of the way he treats women as objects, not real human beings.

Further, on the subject of Trump’s view and treatment of women, consider these quotes from a column by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times.

“Suddenly, Donald Trump looks enlightened about women.  (A comment she made in her column on the basis of the Republican National Convention.)

“…he’s in a 1959 time warp, like some spray-tanned, comb-over swinger in a Vegas lounge, talking about skirts and broads.

“…he filled the Supreme Court with religious zealots ending women’s rights.

“…he has been held liable for sexual abuse, accused of groping, and caught talking about his right to grab women by their lady parts.

“…he cheated on his first wife with the woman who became his second wife and then had flings when he was married to his third wife.

“…he betrayed Melania with a porn star while she was home nursing their son and humiliated her again when the Stormy Daniels case went to trial.

“Sure, his convention beatification was a dated homage to machismo, with Hulk Hogan tearing his shirt off and the UFC’s Dana White introducing Trump as a fighter.

“And yet, somehow, Trump managed to choose a vice-presidential pick whose views on women are even more draconian and meanspirited than his own.

“JD Vance, he of many names, is off to a thudding start.  He went on Megyn Kelly’s podcast Friday for cleanup on Aisle Feline.  She sympathetically asked him about his 2021 rant to Tucker Carlson that top Democrats — Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and A.O.C. — were ‘a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.’”

Vance has no answer.  Neither does Trump.

Don’t forget for them.