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.

With only a few days left to go in the current presidential election, it is time to pay attention to the closing arguments from both candidates.

• From Kamala Harris:  No surprise:  Equality for all Americans and she wants the focus of tHE presidency to be on “delivering for everyday Americans.”

Dana Milbank in the Washington Post, quoting Harris, adds this:  “Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other.  That is who he is.  But, America, I am here tonight to say:  That is not who we are.”  So, he supports Harris.

• From Donald Trump:  No surprise:  Vulgarity.  He has become coarser, and somehow managed to become even cruder in recent days.

Regarding Trump, here’s the way The Atlantic put it: 

“This is the time for closing arguments from Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.  But Trump’s closing argument is not a closing argument at all:  It’s an invitation.  He and his campaign are acting in hopes of provoking Harris, pushing her to muddle her final message.

“The statements and sentiments on display from the Trump campaign this past week, and particularly at Sunday night’s rally at Madison Square Garden, have been racist, xenophobic, and violent.  To note a few:  The comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, invited by the Trump campaign, called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’

“This incendiary language is not only a crude attempt to bait critics; it’s part of a pattern of hate from Trump and his closest allies, and a type of rhetoric that Trump has made clear he intends to incorporate into his plans as president.

“But in continuing to push the lines of decency in American politics, Trump is also attempting to goad the opposition.  His campaign is ramping up a familiar and often effective cycle:  He says or encourages something inflammatory, then goes on to blame his opponents or members of the media for overreacting, sometimes attempting to rewrite his own statements in the process.”

By contrast,  Harris delivered her closing argument on Tuesday, arguing that, as president, she would focus on delivering for everyday Americans while he – Trump — would fixate on exacting revenge.

“A week before the end of the most turbulent and closely fought campaign in recent memory, Harris appeared on the Ellipse, surrounded by Washington’s iconic monuments to democracy, and tore into her Republican rival as un-American.  She cast him as a ‘petty tyrant’ and called him ‘unstable,’ ‘obsessed with revenge,’ ‘consumed with grievance’ and ‘out for unchecked power.’

“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other.  That’s who he is.  But America, I am here tonight to say:  That’s not who we are.”

Regarding Trump’s vulgarity, the Washington Post wrote this:

“Democracy depends on many things:  Institutions, traditions, public legitimacy and, yes, a culture of civility.  The peaceful transfer of power requires people to have at least a minimum degree of trust in their fellow citizens — that the stakes are not existential.

“In this regard, former president Trump showed, in his closing argument at a raucous rally at Madison Square Garden, that, whether he wins or loses on November 5, he has already done severe damage to American politics by coarsening and corroding public discourse.”

In all of this, I recall one of the best public policy quotes from the past, one uttered by the late military general Colin Powell, when, some years ago, he declined to run for president.

He said then – and I agree now – that he wouldn’t run because he “bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

No doubt Powell would say the same today.

So, pay attention to closing statements from Trump and Harris, compare the two, and then vote for the one who advocates civility – Harris.