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.

In politics today, the focus will be on whom Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris will name as her vice president to run against Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Like many other political junkies, I am waiting for the announcement while hoping that the person whom Harris chooses will help her defeat Trump/Vance.

In America, we cannot tolerate another Trump win.

Still, this morning, I write about D.E.I.

The analogy in this blog headline is not meant to be positive. 

The opposite.

D.E.I., which stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” has become that football.

Originally conceived by left-wing Democrats, D.E.I. became a slogan, not a set of real commitments. 

Often, companies, trying to ingratiate themselves with the left, hired employees to be in charge of D.E.I. rather than, without a set of new hires, expressing fealty to the goals themselves.

Is that bad?  Not necessarily.  But hiring more staff may not always be the best way to support ethics such as diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So, when the left-wing spoke, the right-wing folks in the Republican responded back — let D.E.I. die.  And, across the country, new employees in charge of D.E.I. have lost their jobs.  Plus, in another Trumpism, he and some of his acolytes chose to depict Harris as a D.E.I. candidate.

But, consider now the definition of each of the three words, which often get lost in the to’ing and fro’ing of political football.

• Diversity:  The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, and sexual orientations.

• Equity:   The quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality. 

• Inclusion:  The act of including some in a group when they often are left out.

If I was running and a corporation or a government agency, I would support all three – diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But, I just would draw the line at joining a political movement.