Perspective from the 19th 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.
I pose the question in this blog headline because, where I live in Oregon, there is not just one election day.
There are about two weeks of election days.
That’s because, in Oregon, we vote by mail and have for more than 20 years. So, my wife and I voted about two weeks ago. And, then, we did not trust just putting our ballots in the mail, so we delivered them to a drop site.
So did thousands of other Oregonians.
Now we wait for election results, though, in retirement, I don’t pay as much attention these days as I did when I worked in and around politics for about 40 years. Back then, I stayed up very late to see who was predicted to win and to lose.
It reminds me of the time I was born in 1948 – obviously, I know about this now and did not then — when voters went to bed believing that Republican presidential challenger Thomas Dewey had been elected president; in fact, newspaper headlines were written to that effect.
However, then folks arose in the morning, they learned the truth: Democrat incumbent Harry Truman had overturned the result in what has been labeled an historic upset.
Today, as we wait for election results, I wonder how we could – or even should – react.
The Wall Street Journal holds hope this morning that what it calls “party fracturing could create an historic opportunity for realignment where new candidates and policies break through.”
More from the Journal:
“Election day caps a tumultuous campaign season during which anger at the failures of the political system exposed extraordinary divisions within each party.
“The unruly nature of this year’s contests contains an appealing upside: The prospect that America’s unhappiness with the parties has grown so deep that it creates new possibilities for a political change, one that a swath of voters could find more satisfying.”
I hope this is true. But, beyond the election results, we need bi-partisanship in this country, something that has been almost impossible to achieve as those in office work, not to make good decisions, but to vote to say in office.
We need leaders who know how to prompt disparate groups to hew toward the middle, which is where the best solutions lie anyway. That’s called bi-partisanship.
Too much to hope for? Probably. But, I still hold out hope.
As all of us view election results for the next few hours, I use a hackneyed phrase to say we should not “put all our eggs in that basket.”
Elections are just that: Elections. They describe the role of government in our lives.
But, I believe our lives and our futures should be tied to something else: The role of “religion” in our lives.
For me, the word “religion” is inadequate. By it, I mean CHRISTIANITY.
It is a choice I made to believe in one true God, so that I can say, “I don’t know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future.” God.
So, with me, go ahead and consider election results later today. But, leave room for God in your lives.
