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.

Okay, I should find other stuff to write about.  But here is another summary of why Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost.

Of course, I add that I think the country lost, too, with a felon heading to White House to wreak more damage on America.

The bottom line is that gravity – and gravity alone — should have brought Trump down.  For anyone else, it would have.  For Trump, no.

Despite all his personal failures, he rose, defying the normal forces of nature.

Consider the debate between Trump and Harris.

According to several national newspapers, Trump’s chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, has seen just about everything in his three races working for the controversy-stoking former president.  But, post-debate, even he seemed to be bracing for bad news.

Trump had just debated Vice President Harris, repeatedly taking her bait, wasting time litigating his crowd sizes, and spreading baseless rumors about pet-eating immigrants.

Fabrizio had predicted to colleagues that brutal media coverage of Trump’s performance in a debate watched by 67 million people would lift Harris in the polls.  He was right about the media coverage but wrong about the rest.  His first post-debate poll shocked him:  Harris had gained on some narrow attributes, like likability.  But Trump had lost no ground in the contest.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Fabrizio said on a call with senior campaign leaders, according to two participants.

Here’s more from media coverage:

“It was yet more proof — as if more were needed — of Trump’s durability over nearly a decade in politics and of his ability to defy the normal laws of gravity.

“He overcame seemingly fatal political vulnerabilities — four criminal indictments, three expensive lawsuits, conviction on 34 felony counts, endless reckless tangents in his speeches — and transformed at least some of them into distinct advantages.

“How he won in 2024 came down to one essential bet:  That his grievances could meld with those of the MAGA movement, and then with the Republican Party, and then with more than half the country.

“His mug shot became a best-selling shirt.  His criminal conviction inspired $100 million in donations in one day.  The images of him bleeding after a failed assassination attempt became the symbol of what supporters saw as a campaign of destiny.”

Then, this from the Wall Street Journal:  “Harris campaign optimism was a sign of how badly the Harris campaign misread an electorate that was more wound up about inflation and immigration than about Trump’s character.

“Trump punched his return ticket to the White House with a stunning electoral romp that batted away Harris’s attacks and lured voters who believed the country was on the wrong track and blamed President Biden, Harris’s deeply unpopular boss.  Her inability to separate herself from him and offer her own specific solutions to Americans’ problems, despite a lavish campaign war chest, was a central reason for her loss.

From Atlantic Magazine:  “Trump’s proposals on the economy were frequently incoherent; he scapegoated immigrants for Americans’ financial woes and made promises about tariffs that economists said would lead to higher prices.

“Still, voters said consistently that they felt that Trump was the right person to handle the economy, perhaps because of nostalgia for a pre-pandemic economy that’s unlikely to return.

“For all the criticism Harris faced early in her campaign for not issuing clearer policy proposals (she ultimately did), Trump was the one whose appeal was rooted largely in ‘vibes:’ 

“He brought heavy doses of hateful culture-war rhetoric to the race, spreading false and dangerous messages about transgender people, blaming immigrants for societal ills, and smearing women, including Harris.”

I was struck by another sports analogy that has been used in some quarters to explain the election result.  That’s if you can call “curling” a sport.

“For those unfamiliar with the sport (which enjoys 15 minutes of fame every Winter Olympics), it involves sliding a very large, heavy ‘rock’ toward a target on the ice.  One person ‘throws’ a 44-pound disc-shaped stone by sliding it along the ice, sweepers come in and frantically try to marginally change the speed and direction of the rock by brushing the ice with ‘brooms’ that can melt just enough of the ice to make the rock travel farther or perhaps a little bit straighter.

“The sweepers are important, no doubt, but they cannot control the rock enough to save a bad throw.  It’s a matter of physics.  The rock simply has too much momentum.

“What does this have to do with politics?  The underlying dynamics of an election cycle (the economy, the popularity of the president, national events driving the news cycle) are like the 44-pound ‘stone.’  The candidates and the campaign team are the sweepers.  They work frantically — and they can influence the stone — but they don’t control it.

“One of the frustrating elements of political commentary is that we spend far too much time talking about the sweeping and far too little time talking about the stone.  Political hobbyists in particular (and that includes journalists!) are very interested in ad campaigns, ground games and messaging.

“Those things do matter, but when facing an election defeat this comprehensive, you know it was the stone that made the difference.

“So, in 2024, what was the stone?  It’s the same stone it almost always is:   Peace and prosperity.  This is job one.  A decisive number of Americans will put up with a politician’s quirks, foibles and even corruption, if he or she delivers peace and prosperity.”

Sad, but true.

Many voters this time around didn’t care much about Trump’s character.  Harris did and that was her downfall. 

 It was mine, too.