PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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 have often thought about leadership, a trait we look for in politics, but rarely see.

That’s the point. Leadership is hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

Now, we see so-called political leaders competing for our time and attention without standing on principles that deserve our attention. As voters, we often don’t opt support real leadership when we see it , believing that, unless someone agrees with us, they are wrong.

We opt to support someone who happens to believe as we do, or who stands on a street corner, figuratively, and shouts for attention.

As a private sector lobbyist in Salem, Oregon, I looked for political leadership for about 25 years in the business.

I defined leadership this way:

1. First, you can tell a leader because he or she has followers. In other words, leadership requires followership – not as blind puppets, but as those who recognize that someone is worth following.
2. Second, leaders are office-holders who have the ability to bring disparate parties together to solve public policy problems. Call it the ability to lead toward compromise – or as I often call it, “the smart middle” – a lost art in the way politics is played these days.
3. Third, leaders demonstrate a sense of honesty and ethics, which, so often, appears to be missing from politics these days. They also have the ability to admit when they are wrong, which should be a credential, but often gets trumpeted by the media as an indication that a political leader doesn’t know what he or she is doing…otherwise, why the revision.

One of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, whose work most often appears in the Wall Street Journal, wrote about leadership this weekend.

Her analysis was telling. Here are the points she made:

• A leader is someone who first of all means it, and you can tell. He or she sincerely holds the views he or she espouses: He or she is serious. Advancing them is his or her project and purpose.
• The ideas he or she stands for are not merely policy points on an issues matrix. They are held together by a central overarching intention. The new nation called America will survive and thrive while holding to its liberties. The Union must hold. The Cold War will be won, and we will win it. The intention springs from a general, but discernible political philosophy.
• Politicians who can’t turn the dots into a picture are not artists but failed pointillists. They don’t present a full picture. In the end it’s all just dots. No one ever voted for long for a dot.
• Great leaders are capable of arguing for the things they believe in. They can make the case. They can make you think along with them, logically, from point A to point B and beyond. Their words aren’t emotional, as politicians’ tend to be now in an attempt to make a sated audience feel something. (And also because they’re confused about what eloquence is; they think it means fancy.) When leaders rely on logic and fact, voters do feel something: gratitude at the implied respect, and a feeling of warmth at membership in a community of thought and belief.
• Eloquence in political leaders is desirable but not necessary. Too much is made of it even as the real thing disappears. It’s good if you can make the case in a way that is memorable, and that voters can hold in their heads. FDR and Reagan were great and eloquent. But Dwight Eisenhower led American forces through World War II, managed the early days of the Cold War, and built the interstate highway system. Yet listening to him talk was like making your way through children pillow fighting—lots of noise but nothing that made an impression. His actions were eloquent.
• Good leaders live in the real world. They don’t insist on grand ideologies they can squish down on your heads. They know the facts and work within them. They respect reality.
• A leader is aware he or she is the object of many eyes. This puts a responsibility on him or her to act in a certain way—with respect for his or her own dignity and yours. Even if he or she is not in the mood, he or she must uphold standards of presentation. Children are watching and taking cues. That means the future is watching.
• A leader isn’t just trying to survive for himself or herself, to hold on to power. Yet ,a leader tries always to survive. Good leaders are survivors: That’s part of how they show loyalty to what they stand for, by being there to stand for it. How to survive? Shift strategies and tactics but not principles. And admit when you’re wrong, in part because it’s refreshing. Politicians so rarely do it.
• A good leader knows the difference between stubbornness and perseverance. When you’re afraid to look like you backed down, to yourself or others, it’s stubbornness. When you’re willing to pay a price for where you stand, every day, it’s perseverance.

Noonan asks: “When you, the voter, aren’t presented with candidates who look like real leaders, what do you do? Pick the closest to the ideal. Fall back on the practical. Make do with what you have, which is what we usually do. “

In an excellent new book, “Presidents of War,” Michael Beschloss, says this about voting (even as we prepare to do so, or already have cast our ballots in Oregon’s vote-by-mail state):

“Choose a candidate whose values and heart and life experience you feel comfortable with, so that you can feel confident about the vast majority of political decisions they will make, if elected, that you will never hear about.”

So, as I vote, now that I am retired from lobbying, I am looking for aspirants who value leadership. The question is whether they can lead, not whether they agree with me or me with them.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

When you read this blog, you may reach what, I guess, may be an obvious conclusion: I have too much time on my hands.

So, with that time, I have thought lately about some of my language biases. They are as follows:

1. USE OF HYPHENS

I fall down on the side of over-using hyphens because I think doing so contributes to readability.

Consider just one example.

The word bi-partisan, which is used a lot these days as we anticipate another national election in only a few days. If you don’t use a hyphen, someone could pronounce the word as bip – artisan. What is a bip – artisan anyway?

2. USE OF COMMAS

I am one who no doubt could be accused of over-using commas. As with hyphens, I do so because using commas contribute to readability.

3. SPACES BETWEEN TYPED SENTENCES

This is very arcane issue, I know. But I started my professional career as a journalist. Using the Associated Press Stylebook, we always were taught to put two spaces between sentences.

Then, for some reason, AP Stylebook writers decided recently that one space would so. Well, not for me. I got used to two spaces and so that’s what I continue to do – just because I have the freedom to do so.

4. CAPITALIZATION

This is one of the least understood aspects of language. Some people over-use capital letters. Others under-use them.

I try to err on the side of over-use. Examples are the uses of the words governor and legislature. Often, they are not capitalized. But I believe there is a solid rationale to do so, so I do.

5. ABBREVIATIONS

As a journalist, I was taught to abbreviate a lot of words. Representative, when attached to a person, became Rep. _______. Senator became Sen. ___________.

Names of states were abbreviated in almost every circumstance.

As a master of my own destiny in retirement, I choose to avoid most abbreviations because, again avoiding them contributes, I believe, to readability. 

6. SPLITTING INFINITIVES

The advice here is, don’t. If you remain focused as you write, it is relatively easy to avoid this common, but, for me irritating, tendency.

7. LINKING NOUNS AND VERBS

This is another of the most common violations of solid language use.   Think only of this sentence: The committee did ______ work. Should the pronoun be “its” or “their.” It should be “its,” but many people, either in talking or writing, end up using “their.”

If, in this example, you think the word “their” sounds better, then change the sentence to read, “The committee members did “their” work.” In this case, “their” is accurate.

Enough already. Those are, for me, a collection of seven hot-button language issues. With so much time on my hands, I may find more.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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 cannot fathom how the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) could put high school students lives at risk.

How?

By mandating that high school student athletes from Bend and Salem must play in the same league.

Stupid? Yes.

But the worst part of the decision is that students, who ride on often-old school buses, have to cross dangerous mountain passes, either West to the Salem area or East to the Bend area.

The unfortunate reality is that this stupid decision will only be overturned in response to an accident – and I hope no one is killed in such an accident over tough roads in the winter.

For context, I live in Salem and my kids played sports for South Salem High School. If the OSAA decision had been in effect during my kids’ athletic tenures, I would have tried to prevent them from playing.

Safety matters. For your kids and everyone’s kids!

For the OSAA, no!

What mattered for the OSAA was preserving competition. Safety be damned.

All of this came flooding back yesterday as I read an account on the Oregon Public Broadcasting website. While it was solid human-interest story, it gave short shrift to the safety issue.

In a very long story, all it said was this:

“Many parents and school officials argued trips over the pass in big buses were too dangerous. That argument was later given fuel when a bus carrying South Salem and Sprague cross-country runners suffered a mechanical failure hear Sisters. Runners and coaches spent three hours waiting for another bus — and that was in August. Winter snow and ice could make for a different story.”

Earlier this year, the Salem-Keizer School District, armed with parent concern, filed an administrative appeal of the OSAA decision. Nothing happened. No apparent recognition or consideration of the safety issue.

Michael Gillette, a former justice on the Oregon Supreme Court, heard the appeal, eventually deciding that “discretion, when it comes to reclassifying athletic leagues, ultimately rests with OSAA as an independent body.”

Then, he turned down the appeal.

I have no idea what prompted Gillette to rule as he did, but the short shrift he gave to safety galled many concerned about the decision. Among them, me.

In his opinion, Gillette found it telling that Salem-Keizer wouldn’t consider canceling school sports even with OSAA’s decision.

“High school athletics are, in Oregon as in most of the rest of the country, as much a part of American life as breathing,” he wrote. “… If competition is that valuable, then it needs to be available everywhere—in cities and towns, in large schools and small.

“And, if it is to exist everywhere, it needs an umbrella organization that is dedicated to governing it. OSAA’s mission is to try to achieve that goal, however thankless the effort may be.”

So, pursuing athletic completion at all costs trumps safety.

I say let Salem area schools play “lesser schools.” Same for the Bend.  Preserve safety.

Let me provide one more example of the safety issue. I have two cars, one that accepts chains and one that doesn’t. The owner of the store where I buy tires told me straight out: If the weather over the pass is bad enough to require chains, don’t go!

I wish Salem and Bend schools had that option. Now, in the old buses, the only option is to risk life and limb by heading East or West.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

My belief, honed after more than 30 years as a member of Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in Salem, Oregon, is that the course superintendent, Bill Swancutt, is one of the best.

For each of those 30+ years – not to mention eight more on top of that – Swancutt has, not only watched over a golf course, he has been my friend.

He took care of the golf course as if it were one of his children — with the care and concern that would mark a father. It was even said that Illahe was Bill’s second wife, which would be only a faint comparison to Bill’s real wife, Kathy, who has stood by him at Illahe for 38 years.

As of tomorrow, Halloween, Bill is retiring from a job he loved.

He is looking forward to being involved in some pursuit other than making sure a golf course was playable for all members.

At Bill’s retirement ceremony, I had the privilege to make a few remarks, so I provide excerpts here as a way to honor Bill.

• It was my privilege to chair the Green Committee at one point in the past and that gave me my best chance to get to know Bill as we spent time each month reviewing golf course conditions. He was the expert. I was one of those who got to sit by his side. It was through this experience that we became friends.
• Through that experience – and every other since then – I have found bill to practice a management style that is open to suggestions. Put another way, he does not have what I call an “artist’s mentality,” which, to me, means someone who always thinks he knows best and is not open to suggestions. While Bill knows his business, he always has been open to perspectives from others, a critical trait in a member-driven operation like a golf course.
• Bill has presided over many major improvements at Illahe over his 38 years. I remember when we were considering the installation of a new sprinkler system, Bill was often out on the course jerry-rigging the old system because parts were not available for a 40-year-old relic.

Another major project during Bill’s tenure involved re-building greens, which we had come close to losing in wet winter months. This occurred during my tenure as Board President, so I have a special affinity for Bill’s work on this project.

I remember the first green scheduled to be torn up was #7. On the morning the work was due to start, I walked down to the green from my house and, no surprise, Bill was there, too. As we saw the old sod get torn up by various pieces of power equipment, I remember telling Bill – “Hey Bill, you know if this doesn’t work, both of us will get fired and it will mean more to you than to me…yeah, thousands of dollars more based on your paycheck and, for me, zero based on mine.”

The rest is history. Illahe’s greens are among the best in the Northwest, attested to by many visitors who show up to play our course. Give credit where credit is due – to Bill for presiding over a successful project that has made Illahe the envy of many regional players.

Bill and wife Kathy have my wife’s and my best wishes as they embark on the next stage in life – retirement. They deserve high plaudits as they leave, but the good news is that, based on their 38-year commitment to Illahe, they have been made “lifetime members.” That means Bill and I still will see other on the course — this time playing, not tending to the turf.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

In many ways, I owe my life to Earl Bakken?

Say what?

Who is Earl Bakken?

He is the medical device innovator who co-founded Medtronic, one of the major companies in the industry and the maker of the combination pacemaker/defibrillator that I had implanted several years after my “episode,” my word for a phrase I don’t much like – “heart attack.”

Bakken, 94, died over the weekend. Here’s the way Wall Street Journal editorial writers commemorated his passing:

“America’s affluent generation of millennial socialists don’t realize it, but they are living off the prosperity created by earlier generations of capitalists. One of them was Earl E. Bakken, who died last week at age 94 having invented the first wearable, battery-powered pacemaker. He also co-founded Medtronic, the giant medical-device company.

“Earl Bakken’s business life is an American classic. Born in Minnesota, he took to electrical tinkering at an early age after seeing the movie ‘Frankenstein.’ He wrote in his autobiography that he was fascinated, not with the horror, but with the spark of electricity that brought the monster back to life.

“He and a brother-in-law founded Medtronic in 1949 out of a garage. He worked with local hospitals, and in 1957 a surgeon asked Bakken to create a pacemaker for the heart that wouldn’t depend on the hospital’s electric power. That was the spark for what later became an implantable pacemaker that has improved and saved countless lives.

“Medtronic grew into a star of American innovation with a market capitalization of some $121 billion. Based in Minneapolis, it makes cardiac stents and monitors, surgical tools, neurological shunts, drug infusion systems and much more. Bakken retired as chairman in 1989.”

When it came time for a pacemaker/defibrillator device to be implanted in me, I was told by my cardiologist in Salem that I had three options for a maker of the device – Medtronic, Boston Scientific and St. Jude.

I didn’t care which company because all had positive reputations, so my cardiologist chose Medtronic for me. My device worked for several years until, for some reason, it didn’t. I didn’t blame Medtronic for the failure because the implanted device had worked for several years.  And, if you think about it for a moment, such devices represent a critical step forward in treating ealth care issue.  Devices can be put inside the body and report back that everything is working?

Then, for me, good news emerged — I didn’t need the device anymore anyway.  So, it was extracted.

Back to the Wall Street Journal: “In our frenetic celebrity culture, the lives of people not in politics or entertainment often aren’t duly recognized. That’s especially true of entrepreneurs who built the foundations of America’s postwar economic success and global competitiveness. They benefited from what was then a better American education system and sometimes the GI bill after World War II (as Bakken did).

“But they also prospered in a free-market system that offered ready access to capital and rewarded innovation and success. Too many Americans see Medtronic today only as a large corporation, rather than as a success born of ingenuity and hard work. As we recall Bakken’s contributions, we need to promote policies and a larger culture that nurture this spirit of innovation and capitalist incentive.”

I, for one, am thankful for the “innovation and capitalist incentive” illustrated by Bakken. We should acknowledge him on his passing.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

What a name — “The Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?”

What is it?  Well, it is a golf course cut out of the beach grasses on the Southern Oregon coast that, for a golfer, is unlike anything else you might have played.

I was reminded of all this when I read an on-line story from Links Magazine under the headline, “What’s Next for the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?”

I’ll reprint excerpts of the story below because I could not do justice to the report on my own.

But, before that, I will recount a treasured personal memory.

A few of us got access to the Sheep Ranch about 10 years ago or so when our excellent home course superintendent, Bill Swancutt, used his connections to get us a “tee time.” That phrase – “tee time” might be stretching it a bit.

Four of us got into one car for the four-and-one-half hour drive south from Salem to the Bandon area. Rather than going straight to the Bandon Dunes Resort, we took a turn – only Swanny would know where that turn was – into the “Sheep Ranch.”

There were four of us, but I only remember three – Swanny, my late friend Dick Rowell, and me. [The late Dick Rowell was one of my best friends, a linkage – pardon the play on words — which we forged on the golf course at our home track, Illahe Hills, in Salem. Sadly, Dick suffered from chronic depression and, while many of us tried to help him, we failed in the end when he took his own life. Our trip to the Sheep Ranch is one among many great memories of Dick.]

Back to my story.

At the Sheep Ranch, we parked our vehicle near the Sheep Ranch (there was no parking lot) and we entered through a make-shift gate. Before long, as he came out from behind a hill, we met the “superintendent” of the course. He may have been the same one as is mentioned in the Links Magazine story — Greg Harless, most commonly referred to as the course’s “caretaker.”

We introduced ourselves, said how happy we were to be playing “his course,” and asked for his summary of what to expect and how to play course.

Before he said much, he offered this comment, with tongue firmly planted in cheek – “I have one of the best jobs in the world. I am a golf course superintendent without many golfers on my track.”

Yet, here we were, ready for a unusual, but great, round of golf and, as they would say at Bandon Dunes, play “golf as it was meant to be played.”

The super stood with us on a promontory overlooking about a quarter-mile of land before the Pacific Ocean. Pointing West, he said, “there, that’s the course.”

We looked in that direction and, with concentration, could make out, even with just a bit of fog, 18 pins with red flags on what looked, from afar, like 18 greens.

He pulled out a piece of scratch paper and scrawled out, with his own hand, a routing for about 12 or 13 holes. Then said, follow that if you want, but if not, make up your own itinerary. Plus, he said, we’d have to do so anyway to get in the last five or six holes.

After playing one hole, “just find a piece of flat found near a green, and flail away from there toward what you want to be the next hole.”

Distance markers? No. Tee boxes? No. Manicured grass? No.

Just golf “as it was meant to be.”

The super left us and we headed out, traversing in all directions for 18 holes, seemingly without a care in the world.

Here are a few excerpts from the Links Magazine article:

• It has become decreasingly mysterious with every passing article—and there have been many—but the Sheep Ranch still possesses sufficient intrigue and anonymity to ensure the golfer recounting his experiences of the place speaks mostly to a hushed audience. Images and stories have been filtering through for nearly two decades, and its 200 or so rugged, cliff-top acres are clearly visible on Google Earth. But he who is lucky enough to have walked his own undefined route across this stretch of links-land has a story few of his friends can ever match.
• Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch appeared in 2001 about the time Tom Doak was putting the finishing touches to Pacific Dunes, the second course at Mike Keiser’s implausible, yet hugely successful, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the Oregon coast.
• The land on which it sits, site of a former wind farm, came up for sale shortly after the resort opened in 1999. Phil Friedmann, co-creator of the greetings card company that made him and Keiser wealthy, had decided against becoming a partner in Bandon Dunes, thinking Keiser’s plan unlikely to succeed, but did go in with him on this new parcel splitting the $4 million asking price down the middle.
• To be one of the 50-100 golfers per month who take advantage of the opportunity to explore this Shangri-La, you need to speak with Greg Harless, the superintendent but most commonly referred to as the course’s “caretaker.” Harless cuts the greens fairly regularly and keeps the fairways in check (because there is only basic irrigation surrounding the greens, the course closes in summer when the fairways become excessively dry), but that’s about as far as the maintenance operation goes.
• You can play A to B to C to and so on, but the routing is merely a suggestion. Some like to string the F, J, E, C, B, and M greens together to create a stirring sequence of cliff-top holes. The massive E green, covering 20,000 square feet of ground at the course’s western-most point, is the most fortuitously-positioned.

It took us about five hours to make our way around “our 18 holes.” It was great fun – because of the lay of the land, because of the commitment to feel the uneven ground on your feet, because of the makeshift character of finding an 18-hole routing, and because of the personal bonds between and among friends that will last a lifetime.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Back in the day, when I was hiring for positions in state government or in my firm, CFM Strategic Communications, one of the most important questions for me was this: Can you write, and if so, prove it.

I remember asking this question and even subjecting applicants to a writing test to assure that, if they said they could write, they could. It was a way to test their perceptions about their own skills.

But, to mimic the headline in this blog, what comes first – clear writing or clear thinking?

For me, it would be that clear writing indicates an ability to think clearly. So writing is first.

For two writers of letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, it was the reverse. The two letters appeared under the headline:

Clear Thought, Practice Yield Clear Writing

American students begin their higher education with poor writing abilities and are seldom given reason to improve them.

In one letter, a writer from Annapolis, Maryland, said this:

“It is disheartening that college readiness in math fell to its lowest level since 2004, but I am baffled by the absence of interest in crumbling writing skills. When writing was introduced to the ACT college-entrance exam in 2006, the average score was 7.7. It then fell. Now, the writing test is optional, and the average score isn’t reported, perhaps to save everyone embarrassment. The optional essay-writing section of the SAT is required by a declining number of colleges.

“So American students begin their higher education with poor writing abilities and are seldom given reason to improve them. Few universities concern themselves with teaching practical writing skills for the workplace. Poor writing skills have been identified as the biggest disconnect between academia and what employers need, in some cases desperately. Our digital age doesn’t reduce the need for well-written, everyday communication, ranging from customer correspondence to marketing materials to presentations.

“The Center for Plain Language, which pushes federal agencies to write more clearly and usefully, just gave them an average grade of C, down from B.

“Should we care the about quality of writing? How can we not?”

A second letter writer from Phoenix, Arizona said this:

“When I taught journalism lab classes for a professor at Arizona State University, I spent the first two weeks teaching students the difference between ‘they’re,’ ‘their’ and ‘there,’ as well as when and why to use apostrophes.

“School districts in many states, including Arizona, scream about higher pay for teachers and wave their banners as they beg for more money. Your article and my experience show that most teachers lack the ability to teach students what they need to know to pass the ACT or SAT, probably because the teachers were never taught. We baby boomers were probably the last generation to receive a really good education.”

So, which comes first – clear writing or clear thinking? Well, in many ways, it doesn’t matter.

Write clearly to indicate your ability to think clearly.  Or think clearly, then illustrate your ability to write clearly.

Have it both ways!

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

This is one of three departments I run with a completely free hand to do what needs to be done.  No one tells me what to do or what to include.  So, I am not just a director — I am a dictator.

From a Wall Street Journal editorial on a one-party (Democrat) state – New York: “The two Democrats (U.S. Senator Kristin Gillibrand and Governor Andrew Cuomo) can get away withdisdain for democracy because New York is increasingly a one-party state in which Republicans can’t win statewide. This is partly a result of a GOP majority in the state Senate that has failed to offer much of an alternative to liberal governance. But even that restraint in Albany is likely to vanish this year as Democrats expect to control every branch of government. Politicians aren’t more accountable when they face no significant opposition.”

Comment: In some ways, this sounds like a bit like Oregon where Democrats control almost everything. There is one Republican statewide officer holder, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson. And Republicans haven’t won the governorship for more than 35 years, dating back to the governor for whom I worked – Vic Atiyeh.

From Hugh Hewitt in the Washington Post: “The framers intended political disputes to be settled in and by Congress and the president — elected officials who could be replaced. Now, perhaps — hopefully — a new era of judicial modesty is opening. The court should retreat from absurdly insisting on creating a perfect society with measured and judicially mandated outcomes, ‘scientific’ precision, balancing tests and invented doctrines, all administered by federal judges. The justices should stop ‘judicializing’ politics and insist that, if the political branches do not resolve a controversy, that controversy will not be resolved.

“The court should neither ‘hurry up’ nor obstruct social change. It should not try to redirect or dam the mighty river ‘Culture,’ and it should cease trying to vacuum away the delicate compromises local, state and national legislators make between the deeply felt religious beliefs of a vast and diverse people. Rather, it should read closely the laws that Congress passes, hold them up to the Constitution’s guarantees and refuse the efforts of elected officials to punt power to bureaucracies.”

Comment: Hewitt makes a good case for a conservative court – one that, as put by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robers, serves as an umpire, not one of the players.

From Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post: “Democrats have seized on recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) in a round of media interviews after the Treasury Department reported that the federal budget deficit increased 17 per cent year over year, to $779 billion in fiscal 2018.

“’It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,’ McConnell told Bloomberg News on October 16 when asked about the deficit announcement. ‘It’s a bi-partisan problem: Unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future.”

“He added that by ‘entitlement reform,’ he was ‘talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.’

“Cue the immediate outrage from the left.

“’If Republicans retain the Senate they will do everything they can to take away families’ health care and raise their costs,’ Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said in a statement. ‘Americans should take Senator McConnell at his word.’

“Okay, these are the usual kind of scare tactics used by politicians on both sides to warn of looming program cuts if the other side’s proposals are adopted. Not just ‘cuts,’ but actual elimination of three popular programs.

“That’s not what McConnell said. In fact, he did not even say the Republicans hoped to cut those programs. He said changes would happen only if both parties worked together to overhaul the programs, which are under financial stress because of the retirement of the baby-boom generation.”

Comment: This is another case of Democrats being Democrats. They cannot seem to understand that it is possible that, even though Republicans are in charge, they might want to work Democrats on consensus solutions.

From Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal: “The Democrats reduced all the complexities of a Supreme Court nomination to mandatory expressions of sympathy for a human tragedy. For many Americans, as summarized on the Senate floor by Senator Susan Collins, the Democratic effort to force her and the rest of the country into making this impossible Sophie’s Choice was just too much. Due process still matters.

“The left’s reductionist Kavanaugh strategy enraged and energized a sleepy Republican electorate, whose interest in the midterms now effectively matches the Democrats.’”

Comment: We’ll see in a week or so, but the Democrats’ strategy on Kavanaugh, as if there was a strategy, not just Democrats trying to be quotable, may still come back to haunt them.

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal: “Everyone running for office should admit things have gotten too hot, too divided. Then they should try to cool the atmosphere. Next Tuesday will mark one week before the election. Candidates should devote the day to something different. It would be good to see every one give a speech or statement containing their most generous definition of the aims and meaning of the opposing party. A Democratic nominee might say, ‘Whether they always succeed or not, Republicans do want to protect the liberties that have allowed this nation become the miracle of the world.’ A Republican might say, ‘At its best and most sincere, the Democratic Party hopes to help those in peril, and to soften disparities of wealth and opportunity.’”

Comment: Great idea, Peggy Noonan. If candidates on both sides would deign to say nice things about the opponent – not just negative broadsides – we’d be ahead in this country. Fat chance! I know it won’t happen, but, if it did, I’d be interested in all the comments.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

This blog could signal the opening of one of the departments I run with a free hand to make the management decisions I feel need to be made – the Department of Pet Peeves.

But this time, I prefer to give the issue standing on its own.

It deals with a classic example of when state laws are ignored because legislators and advocates – either or both – want them to be ignored. Or, if not totally ignored, to be rendered useless.

One of the best examples, for me, revolves around health insurance issues. Know this – I was a health insurance lobbyist for about 25 years, so I carry a substantial bias.

There is an existing state law that requires a cost-benefit study before – yes, before – the legislature can enact any new health insurance mandate.

Here is a text of the law in ORS 171.875:

The law “requires that every proposed legislative measure containing health insurance coverage mandates to be accompanied by a report that assesses both the social and financial effects of the coverage. Areas that must be addressed in this report include the following:

• “The extent to which treatment or service will be used in Oregon;
• “The extent of coverage already available in Oregon;
• “The proportion of Oregonians who already have such coverage;
• “The extent to which lack of coverage results in financial hardship in Oregon;
• “Evidence of medical need in Oregon for the proposed treatment or services; and
• “The financial effect of the proposed measure, including the increase/decrease of costs of treatment, the extent to which coverage will increase treatment, the extent to which mandated treatment is expected to be a substitute for more expensive treatment, the impact on administrative expenses of the insurer and premiums/administrative expenses of policyholders and the overall impact on total cost of health care.”

This is a law that I found was seldom enforced. And, if it was enforced, few of those involved saw the reports to verify the enforcement.

Instead, what ruled the day was that legislators and advocates believed that enacting a mandate was the most important objective – more important than a state law requiring the cost-benefit study before doing so.

I remember one case that stood out more than many of the rest. I cannot remember for sure, but it was either a mandate to require health insurance companies to contract with a specific hospital in Portland – one that, in fact, no longer exists – or it was a mandate to require insurers to contract with every podiatrist in the state.

With other health insurance lobbyists, I tried to fight off the mandate as not being in the best interest of Oregonians, either from a medical treatment standpoints or from a financial perspectives.

Here was the rub. The lobbyist for the special hospital or the podiatrists – he was one and the same — actually drafted the report that was meant to comply with ORS 171.175. It was not drafted by a legislative staff member; it was drafted by the lobbyist himself.

That was deemed to be compliance with a law that should have held more standing. After all, law is the law – or it is supposed to be so. But, for me, it stood out as a perversion of the law.

There was good news in the end. Health insurance lobbyists managed to kill the mandate despite the superficial cost-benefit analysis.

My point is that legislators, if they pass a law, ought to be required to live within both the letter and the spirit of the law. If not, why have the law in the first place. In health insurance, some mandates are worth implementing, but only after thoughtful and careful review, not just because the politics favors it.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

It will not be a surprise to readers of this blog to hear me say that one of my favorite columnists is Peggy Noonan, who honed her skills writing speeches for former president George Bush.

She had been absent from the Wall Street Journal for some weeks, but the good news is that she returned to her post just in time to provide excellent analysis of the battle over Brett Kvanaugh’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In particular, Noonan gave plaudits to Senator Susan Collins, Republican from Maine, who was in the eye of the storm in the Kavanaugh circus – to mix metaphors. Collins came in for severe criticism from the left when she announced that, on the merits, she would vote for Kavanaugh.

On October 11, Noonan’s piece appeared under this headline:

Voices of Reason—and Unreason

Susan Collins put on a clinic in thoroughness and justice. Democrats need to stand up to the screamers.

Then Noonan went on:

“What did the Kavanaugh controversy tell us about our historical moment? It underscored what we already know, that America is politically and culturally divided and that activists and the two parties don’t just disagree with but dislike and distrust each other.

“We know also the Supreme Court has come to be seen not only as a constitutional (and inevitably political) body but as a cultural body. It follows cultural currents, moods, assumptions. It has frequently brushed past the concept of democratic modesty to make decisions that would most peacefully be left to the people, at the ballot box, after national debate.

“So citizens will experience the court as having great power over their lives, and nominations to the court will inevitably draw passion. And this was a fifth conservative seat on a nine-person court.”

The Kavanaugh hearings, Noonan averred, contained some new elements.

“There were no boundaries on inquiry, no bowing to the idea of a private self. Accusations were made about the wording of captions under yearbook photos. The Senate showed a decline in public standards of decorum. A significant number of senators no longer even pretend to have class or imitate fairness. The screaming from the first seconds of the first hearings, the coordinated interruptions, the insistent rudeness and accusatory tones—none of it looked like the workings of the ordered democracy that has been the envy of the world.

“Two Republican senators this week wrote to me with a sound of mourning. One found it ‘amazing’ and ‘terrifying’ that ‘seemingly, and without very much thought, nearly half the United States Senate has abandoned the presumption of innocence in this country, all to achieve a political goal.’ The other cited ‘a truly disturbing result: One of the great political parties abandoning the Constitutionally-based traditions of due process and presumption of innocence.’

“At the very least, Senate Democrats overplayed their hand. “

As for Collins, Noonan said she “redeemed the situation.”

“In her remarks announcing her vote, she showed a wholly unusual respect for the American people, and for the Senate itself, by actually explaining her thinking. Under intense pressure, her remarks were not about her emotions. She weighed the evidence, in contrast, say, to Senator Cory Booker, who attempted to derail the hearings from the start and along the way compared himself to Spartacus. Though Spartacus was a hero, not a malignant buffoon.

“She (Collins) judged him (Kavanaugh) as centrist in his views and well within the mainstream of judicial thought. He believes the idea of precedent is not only a practice or tradition, but a tenet rooted in the Constitution.

“It (the Collins speech) was a master class in what a friend called ‘old-style thoroughness combined with a feeling for justice.’”

So, kudos to Collins for conducting herself with reason and skill. And kudos to Noonan for returning to her commentator position to provide reason – instead of, as she says, “unreason.”

We need more people of the stature of Collins and Noonan to be involved in our political life.