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.

The stakes appear to be growing on almost a moment-by-moment basis for Oregon’s Greg Walden, a past master of the arts of both politics and substance.

Those qualities, first on display in the Oregon Legislature, have given him a leadership post in the Republican House in Washington, D.C. And, now, as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he has been thrust into a leading position on a major Republican priority – getting rid of ObamaCare and putting a better health care plan in place.

The prospect is easier than the reality.

The bottom line is this: Do you want a replacement for ObamaCare that relies, at least to a degree on market forces, or do you want a government single payer system?

Walden’s national stature won’t necessarily rise or fall on his health care leadership position, for he is far more than a one-issue politician. Plus, anyone who knows him knows he is nothing if not honest, forthright and bright. I first encountered him in Salem when I lobbied him and then represented an association (the Oregon Association of Broadcasters) that included his family radio station in Hood River.

He’ll need all his best qualities in the coming debate where he will join Representative Kevin Brady, House chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and House Speaker Paul Ryan as they try to push what inevitably may come to be called TrumpCare, a term Democrats are already using to deride it, just as Republicans used the term ObamaCare, though former President Obama eventually adopted the term himself, saying “he was Obama and he cared.”

As for TrumpCare, President Donald Trump has endorsed the Walden/Brady/Ryan plan, though he probably didn’t have much to do with its substance.

One major risk is that ObamaCare created so many government hand-outs that it will be tough to overturn. They’ll be many stories — call them anecdotes in the worst sense of that term in public policy — of people disadvantaged or who will lose government-provided health insurance coverage under the Walden/Brady/Ryan bill.

The Wall Street Journal, for its part, labels the plan one that can set the stage for action in Congress to replace ObamaCare, though it says the first draft is just and only that – a first draft.

But, the Washington Post calls it “heartless and reckless.”

Various critics have labeled it “ObamaCare Lite” and you can almost hear the glee in their voices as they come up with what they believe is such a quotable moniker. The next thing you know the plan will be called “Walden-gate” or “Brady-gate” after the Watergate mess.

As written by Walden, Brady and their staffs, the “American Health Care Act” would be the most consequential GOP social-policy reform since the welfare overhaul of 1996. Not only does the bill repair the failures of the Affordable Care Act, it starts to correct many of the government-created dysfunctions that have bedeviled U.S. health care for decades.

Though the individual insurance market dominates the debate, the House’s Medicaid reform might end up being more important. This safety-net program originally meant for poor women, children and the disabled has morphed into general insurance for working-age, able-bodied adults above the poverty level, despite concerns about low-quality care and price controls.

The House would convert Medicaid’s funding formula from an open-ended entitlement into block grants to states. The amount would be determined by per capita enrollment and grow with medical inflation. States would thus have a reason to set priorities and re-target Medicaid on the truly needy.

In the individual market, the bill discards ObamaCare’s web of mandates and regulations in favor of incentives to buy health insurance in a deregulated market.

Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal wrote a paragraph this week that is worth considering for all of the potential opponents of Walden, Brady and Ryan. “It’s important to note something else,” Jenkins wrote. “Even if we grant sincerity to Mr. Obama’s dream of an egalitarian health-care system, ObamaCare is a fair representation of what political reality would deliver: A system in which elected politicians constantly try to woo specific voter blocs by shifting their costs to other health-care payers or to the general taxpayer.”

To me, Jenkins point is on target and represents an overall reason why it’s time for Congress to get rid of ObamaCare for good. It also would be helpful if the new program was able to get votes from other than just Republicans on the strength of the reality that one of the reasons ObamaCare failed was that it was drafted and voted for only by Democrats.

“It’s time for Republicans to stand up and be counted,” Jenkins continued. “Having been handed the gift of ObamaCare’s failure, can Republicans show voters they can do better with conservative principles. What’s at stake, in the end, is this: Either health care reform heads in a more market-based direction step by step, or it moves toward single-payer system step by step. If Republicans blow this chance and default to Democrats, they might as well endorse single-payer because that is where the politics will end up.”

And this footnote: It’s interesting to note that the media is reporting rising opposition to the plan specifically because it is being considered in public. That’s very different than what happened with ObamaCare several years ago when few Democrats had even read the plan – including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment admitting the same – before they voted it into law, without any Republican support.

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.

If you are a golfer, do you know how to apply the rules in your nine or 18-hole rounds?

The likely answer is no. And one of the reasons is that the rules are so complex they defy common understanding.

As one golfer, I have tried to learn the rules, but have encountered great difficulty in doing so, either a tribute to my lack of acuity or the complexity of the rules themselves. I prefer the latter.

So, those of us who play the game of golf saw a solid development the other day when an international committee produced a simpler set of golf rules, albeit in draft form.

There were a number of key changes, as listed below, but, overall, the number of rules was reduced from 34 to 24, a solid step on its own, regardless of the detail involved.

Here’s the way the Washington Post put it in a piece on the rule changes:

“Seeking to simplify their game and increase its popularity among younger generations, golf’s governing bodies previewed a broad set of rule changes Wednesday. The proposed revisions to golf’s official code of play are designed to make the rules ‘easier to understand and apply,’ and the overhaul represents arguably the most sweeping effort since the sport’s first known rule book was published in 1744.”

The joint effort to produce new rules came from the United States Golf Association, which oversees golf in the United States and Mexico, and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which oversees golf in the rest of the world. What starts now is a six-month public review period, which will consider comments from anyone, pros and amateurs alike. Then, the final rules are scheduled to go into effect by 2019.

It is worth noting that Oregon’s own Barb Trammell, the executive director of the Oregon Golf Association, served on the international committee that produced the rules changes. She said it was a good, solid effort to simplify the rules for the benefit all who play the game.

On its website, the USGA said this: “The main goal of the initiative is to help golfers everywhere by revising many rule procedures and outcomes for better consistency, simplicity and fairness and, overall, by bringing the rules up to date to meet the changing needs of the global game. The current review began five years ago [as opposed to the usual four-year cycle] because we recognized that these incremental revisions over the years have tended to make the rules more and more complex, especially as concepts and exceptions are added in an effort to give a ‘fair’ answer for every situation.”

Here, with a nod to the Washington Post article, is a list of the rules which make the most sense to me.

• No penalty for accidentally moving your ball while in search of it or on the putting green.
• No penalty when a player (or the player’s equipment or caddie) accidentally deflects his or her own ball while it’s in motion.
• When dropping a ball while taking relief, players can do so from just above the ground, rather than from a standing position with the arm outstretched.
• Time for a ball search is reduced from five to three minutes.
• Allow players to repair “any damage on the green,” including spike marks and shoe damage. [This is a substantial change because all of who have watched professionals or played the game ourselves have been irritated about how spike marks or other indentations can spoil a putt.]
• No penalty for hitting an unattended flagstick still in the hole on a putt from the green.
• No penalty for touching the line of play on the putting green, as long as a player did not improve the line.
• Players can take relief from a bunker for a two-stroke penalty, using the “back-on-a-line procedure.” [All of us who have struggled with bunker play may like this rule, even with the penalty.]
• Players are encouraged to employ “ready golf” and take shots out of turn when it makes sense to do so; players should make strokes in no more than 40 seconds.
• Players could have their number of strokes on a given hole capped under a “maximum score” format.

“I think golf’s emphasis on the rules can sometimes turn people away from it,” which is a quote attributed to golf pro Rory McIlroy. “To modernize and make it simple is a good thing. With what’s happened in the last couple of years, with some rulings and high-profile things that have happened at crucial stages in tournaments, people who look at that and might want to get into the game say: ‘You know what? It’s too complicated.’”

“It all just seemed to get away from the simple game that it once started out to be,” according to another pro, Adam Scott. “Lots of things have changed over time, and I just don’t think we moved the rules quickly enough as the game changed, and decisions became a big part of this and having to ask about intent and all these kind of things. It’s difficult. There’s competition golf and then there’s social golf, and I think some common sense should be applied to both.”

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.

If you go back to the presidential campaign trail, you heard a lot about ObamaCare, the federal health care coverage program inaugurated by President Barack Obama and his Democrat colleagues in Congress.

But campaigning by Republicans to get rid of or reform ObamaCare is easier than actually doing it.

Even President Donald Trump, who campaigned heavily against ObamaCare, signaled that he understands doing the deed is incredibly complicated. So do members of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

The goal is to find a way to reform health care without it being just a “Republican deal.” The lack of bi-partisanship was one of the major problems with ObamaCare; not one Republican voted for it. It was only a Democrat deal.

According to the Wall Street Journal last week: “A growing number of Republican state leaders, not content to wait as Congress struggles to repeal the Affordable Care Act and overhaul Medicaid, are mobilizing in an effort to reshape how health care is delivered in their states.

“Encouraged by a Trump administration that appears receptive to such moves, more than a half-dozen states are seeking federal permission to impose coverage restrictions on many Medicaid beneficiaries, including drug testing and lifetime enrollment caps, some of which would be unprecedented.

“Maine, for example, may limit most people on Medicaid to five years of benefits. Kentucky could require many recipients to work. Wisconsin wants to drug-test enrollees.”

It’s not clear yet what Oregon will do, especially with Democrats in control of the legislature and the governor’s office. Budget gaps, as described below, will demand action of some kind.

Washington, D.C. sets broad guidelines for Medicaid, but states have some flexibility and the federal government can provide more through waivers.

Oregon recently gained approval of a new waiver that gave the state permission for what officials claim will be five more years of stability in how health care is delivered to Oregon’s poor – stability perhaps, but with problems over how much money is available.

The Oregonian newspaper wrote that the Oregon Health Authority, even with waiver approval, must come up with a new $350 million to pay for the program. The federal government’s contribution to Oregon’s Medicaid operation is decreasing from 78 percent to 75 percent of the total. That $350 million is just one of the factors contributing to a $935 million budget gap at the Oregon Health Authority, state officials confirmed.

To make matters worse, Oregon did not get $1.25 billion in federal money it had requested to add to the state’s coordinated care organizations, the new regional operations the state created in 2012 to manage healthcare for the poor and that now provide care for more than one million Oregonians.

Meanwhile, a U.S. House committee chaired by Oregon’s Greg Walden is proposing a new way to reshape the Medicaid program, an effort to resolve one of the most divisive issues in the debate among Republicans over how to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Wall Street Journal carried an article this morning suggesting that Walden will need to use all of his honed political instincts to surmount opposition among Republicans, not to mention Democrats.

Under the committee’s plan states that grew their Medicaid programs under the health law could maintain their expanded programs until 2020 before federal funding would decrease. In a nod to states that did not expand Medicaid under ObamaCare and were concerned they would be penalized for not doing so, the committee proposed to allocate more Medicaid dollars to those states.

Beyond Medicaid, another approach reportedly under consideration by Republican leaders is to propose a wide-ranging reform bill and, in effect, challenge their Republican colleagues to oppose it. The belief is they won’t say no if given a chance to vote affirmatively on repeal and replace, given all their promises on the campaign trail.

Walden and his House colleague, Republican Kevin Brady from Texas, are planning to move forward on a full repeal-and-replace legislation in the next few days. They presented their plan to GOP senators at a meeting last week as part of an effort to get the House and Senate on the same page.

Tax credits for health care expenses are likely to be part of the House Republican leaders’ plan. They cited Trump’s endorsement of a tax credit to help people purchase insurance, saying it meant the president was on the same page. But conservative House Freedom Caucus members, who see the tax credit as a new entitlement, countered that Trump did not commit to refundable credits, a priority for the Caucus.

With all the to’ing and fro’ing, here is a quick summary of my own ObamaCare replacement plan, which I describe, not because I will have anything to do with the issue in Washington, D.C., but simply to indicate that I have thought about a plan, not just controversy about all of the politics.

1. Require all citizens to have health insurance. [As I’ve written before, think of this way. All of us who drive cars are required to have automobile insurance. If we don’t, we pay a price. The same policy should exist for health insurance, though it will be difficult for many Republicans to stomach this mandate.]
2. Provide a catastrophic health insurance plan for those who cannot afford regular insurance and who need a lower-cost option.
3. Accommodate people with pre-existing health conditions.
4. Allow broad access to health-savings accounts.

Will “my plan” solve all of this nation’s health care problems? No. But, if elected officials of good will and good intent – yes, there are both in Congress – work together to find middle ground, health care issues could be resolved in a bi-partisan fashion without relying so much on too many government mandates and funding. A functioning marketplace can deliver high-quality care at lower cost.

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 am the director of the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, just as I also direct the Department of Pet Peeves. I carry out both directorships based only on my whim and caprice, without paying attention to anyone else.

Call me a dictator if you want, but that’s the way it is.

So, here are more good quotes, with which I don’t necessarily agree or disagree, but which I found thought-provoking.

Wall Street Journal editorial writers on presidential address to Congress: “As usual for new Presidents, Mr. Trump’s main focus was domestic reform, and the foreign-policy sections offered no notable details. He was reassuring in calling for ‘a direct, robust and meaningful engagement with the world’ and he also invoked ‘American leadership.’ How that will manifest itself beyond destroying Islamic State, he did not say.

“Our guess is the speech won’t do much to move Democrats in a polarized Washington. But perhaps it will reassure nervous Republicans who have wondered when he would focus on the hard task of governing. The speech puts him on firmer ground for that challenge.

Wall Street Journal columnist on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos: “Certainly the teachers’ unions and the Democrats they hold in their pockets account for the core of the opposition to the choice and accountability. But the GOP has made its own grim contributions to our two-tiered public-school system. This includes in Illinois in 2010, when nearly half the Republicans in the state House provided the margin needed to kill a Chicago voucher program.”

From Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal: “The Spanish viceroys who governed the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries had a saying when it came to the edicts—usually ill-judged and invariably late—from their sovereign across the sea: Obedezco pero no cumplo. I obey but I do not comply.

“It could be the motto of Donald Trump’s cabinet, at least on the foreign-policy side.

“Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said during a visit to Mexico that there would be ‘no, repeat, no, use of military force in immigration operations. None.’ This was a few hours after Mr. Trump had described his deportation policy as ‘a military operation.’

“A few days earlier, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley insisted ‘we absolutely support a two-state solution’ for Israelis and Palestinians, just a day after the president said he was agnostic on the subject.

“Before that, it was Mike Pence affirming the centrality of NATO, after his boss had called it obsolete. And Jim Mattis, promising Iraqis that the administration does not intend to take their oil, despite the countless times Mr. Trump has lamented our failure to do so. And Mike Pompeo reiterating that, yes, it was Russia that was behind the DNC leaks, and not, as Mr. Trump speculated last year, a 400-pound man in New Jersey.”

Kathleen Parker on George Bush (43): “Bush’s brilliance shone, however, when he sided with the Fourth Estate over the current chief executive. A free press, he said, is ‘indispensable to democracy.’

“’We need an independent media to hold people like me to account,’ he said, adding: ‘Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.’

“Truer or timelier words are rare.

“Despite his flaws and misjudgments, Bush nevertheless was well-liked by many journalists for the very reason Trump isn’t. Bush had a heart. Self-deprecation came easily to him. He wore himself lightly.”

Strassel on George W. Bush: “Mr. Bush is a straight-up guy. While president, he treated the press and his political opponents with general courtesy—attending their events, living with their bias. He ran as a uniter and was far more genuine in his outreach than his grandiose successor (Barack Obama). He didn’t lie, or bully, or sic his IRS on his opponents, or spy on reporters. He took responsibility for his actions, notably big decisions like going to war.

“Not one bit of that earned him any credit. Go back and read the headlines from the Bush administration. They vary in substance from today’s coverage, but not the least in tone. Bush Derangement Syndrome entailed a vicious, daily assault by a media contemptuous of Mr. Bush’s intelligence, intentions and integrity. He was compared to Hitler and terrorists, accused of racism, homophobia and sexism. He was a plutocrat, out to rip off the nation’s old and poor. He orchestrated conspiracies ranging from 9/11 to the spread of avian flu. He lied, people died.

“None of this was true, but the goal of the media and the left from the start of the Bush presidency was to demonize and delegitimize the man and his agenda. It worked to a degree, in that it helped put the White House into the hands of Barack Obama—who, in contrast to Mr. Bush, used the power of his office to continue vilifying his opponents. Mr. Trump’s smash-mouth politics are simply a continuation of this trend.

“Which brings us to the president’s Tuesday address to Congress, and the shocked faces of all those women in white. Democrats were counting on Mr. Trump to unleash another gloomy tirade, the easier to continue demonizing him. Instead a gracious Mr. Trump called for unity, offered to work with the other side, and dangled some liberal priorities in front of Democratic noses—infrastructure spending, immigration reform. Nancy Pelosi looked verklempt.

“Democrats have been so eager to paint Mr. Trump as a right-wing lunatic that they’ve actually started to believe it—at their peril. The reality is that Mr. Trump is one of the least ideological Republican leaders in modern history. He wasn’t even a member of the GOP until recently. And while he clearly intends to uphold his campaign promises, he’s a negotiator who is always up for a deal. This is a man the Democratic Party can work with, if it chooses.”

And Strassel on Democrat opposition to all things Trump: “Then again, the Trump phenomenon is rooted in voters’ growing disgust with politics as usual. Although Mr. Trump’s personal approval ratings are far from stellar, the latest poll from this newspaper and NBC shows that voters appreciate the president’s directness, his decisiveness, and his intention to get things done. The poll also shows a growing sense of optimism and a sharp turn against the Democrats. Obstruction would be taking a big chance in these times.”

Permit this director to add a footnote on former President George W. Bush. I thought he conducted the Office of the President with the same skills a CEO would use – involvement, but not over-the-top micro-management. As stated above, he also had the trait of self-deprecation, which made him all the more likeable.

My sense is that history will treat him better than he was treated while in office.

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 might have been the first “presidential” address for this mercurial president, Donald Trump.

Whether you agree with him or not – and many Americans do not – Trump did appear presidential in his address to a joint session of Congress.

He did not fulminate or go beyond his usual pale of criticizing everyone but himself. He left the media, the “opposition party,” alone. He stuck to his script, reading from a teleprompter for the majority of his remarks. He did not cover new policy ground, but reiterated his positions on taxes, getting rid of ObamaCare, exalting America’s place in the world by an “America-first” strategy, and renewing his pledges to do something about immigration.

Behind him on the platform sat Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, often visible in live television coverage. They appeared to lead the clapping for many of Trump’s comments, some with a standing ovation. As the camera panned around the room, most of the Democrats stoically kept their seats.

One of the loudest standing ovations of the evening went to the widow of the slain U.S. serviceman, Riley Owens, who died recently on a U.S. military mission.

Some commentators criticized Trump as attempting to capitalize on the incredible sorrows of a recent widow, but, as one observer, I thought Trump struck the exactly the right chord, both in terms of honoring the selfless actions of a man who gave his life for his country, as well as underlining his, Trump’s, support for the military.

In many ways, his “use” of symbols in the audience conjured up images of what Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before him had done in their State of the Union addresses.

As I said, I thought Trump struck the exactly the right image as appeared genuine and heartfelt, good characteristics for Trump to emphasize.

Where does all of this go from here?

Perhaps nowhere in the sense that Trump and the Rs remain far apart from the Democrats who can be counted on to continue to oppose and deride every move from the other side. [In the spirit of full disclosure, as I watched the address on TV, I did see Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democrat leader, clap once. He probably won’t remember that he did.]

There are many tests ahead, but as Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal several days ago, one of the first will be the confirmation fight over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. As Noonan suggests, Democrats in the Senate would be well-served to confirm Gorsuch, given his solid credentials, and save their bullets for an easier target, perhaps even the next Court nominee if there is one soon – and that would be a nomination by Trump calculated to turn the Court conservative.

Further, who knows how the Trump “presidential” look will last. The betting here is not long, but one day represents a good start.

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.

If you read this blog, you know that, from time to time, I open the Department of Pet Peeves. I am the director and have full and absolute authority about how the department runs.

I also am in charge of one other department. It is the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering. Again based on my whim and caprice, I intend to include some of the best quotes I have read from columnists at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times, all of which I read – at least skim – daily. I might include a good quote from the Oregonian if I can find one.

I don’t always agree with the quotes. I just find them to be thought-provoking.

So, here goes – the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering is now open.

Trump and the Media: Many of us have had just about enough of the squabble between the media and President Trump. For the media, they ought to focus on covering the president rather than fighting with him, which, when they do, just means they get deflected from reporting real news.

Here’s the way Daniel Henninger from the Wall Street Journal put it:

“…the press seems more interested in berating the president than in covering him. Mr. Trump’s thin skin and lack of self-discipline don’t help his cause. Nor does his rocky relationship with the truth. But Mr. Trump isn’t the first president to prevaricate; he’s just less polished than we’re accustomed to.”

Henninger gets both sides right. The media are at fault, but so is the president with a “thin skin and lack of self-discipline.

Congress and Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch: This confirmation donnybrook will begin occurring in earnest in a few weeks. Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal suggests this approach for Democrats.

“If Democrats have a brain in their head, they’ll let Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch sail through the Senate. He’s too attractive. He has been frank and respectful in his meetings with them. He’s been candid about the man who nominated him, Donald Trump, to the reported irritation of the president. He is a thinker of clear conservative leanings who cannot be painted as radical because he’s radical as warm milk. His decisions tend to be plain, direct yet highly literate; in one he diagramed a sentence. He’s a friendly persuader with a serious intellectual background (Marshall Scholar at Oxford) and personal dignity.

“Sharp and uniform opposition to him would look radical.

“They should make critical or reserved speeches at the confirmation hearings next month and then softly vote yes. They should make a show of their desire to be fair, impartial, Constitution-minded. Then they should try to kill the next nomination as a bridge too far, while hiding behind the good faith they showed in accepting Judge Gorsuch.”

Politics and the Judiciary: Laurence Silberman, senior judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, got it right the other day in the Wall Street Journal when he said two elements of the judiciary had violated solid, independent traditions by becoming far too political.

His reference was to Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg and FBI Director James Comey. Here is the way he wrote it:

“Last year we experienced a rather spirited presidential election season. It was probably the fiercest of my lifetime. But we should not be troubled by heated political campaigns. They are the occasional episodes that mark a healthy democracy.

“In one respect, however, the 2016 election campaign was quite troubling. We saw two of our most important legal institutions—the Supreme Court and the Justice Department—bend in the political winds.

“The thrust of my speech (to the Federalist Society) was that the press swayed judicial decisions. But it never occurred to me that the pressures and inducements would lead to a justice’s open intervention in a political campaign. I refer to my onetime colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To be sure, she isn’t entirely alone. During the campaign, Justice Kennedy publicly lamented its divisive nature, as if he were speaking from Buckingham Palace. Although this is perhaps in bad form for a justice, it pales in comparison to recent statements of ‘The Notorious RBG.’”

Beyond Ginsburg, Comey’s political indiscretions during the Trump-Clinton are far too obvious to cite here, yet he still has his job.

The Permanent Political Campaigns: Also in the Wall Street Journal, Henninger bemoans the failure of campaigning to end and governing to begin. The first does not serve the second. Here is the way he wrote it:

“We could spend the next several years arguing whether Mr. Trump or the dishonest mainstream media started this, but a more productive question is, why is the mayhem happening?

“It is happening mainly because the presidential campaign didn’t end last November. The political culture of the 2017 campaign endures inside the White House and among the press and the Trump opposition.

“Presidential campaigns are an essential feature of the American political system—long, raucous, fiercely contested. But that glorious tumult is supposed to give way to the more substantial, harder politics of the presidency.

“The permanent campaign has been with us a long time, and Barack Obama was the first president who didn’t disband his campaign operation after winning. But we’re in a different dimension today.”

Again, Henninger is right. People on both sides in this country ought to get over campaigning and get about the business of governing, which is often a return to what I have called the “smart middle” where most pressing public policy problems are solved anyway.

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 actually a brief addendum to my last blog, which outlined some of the steps in producing political leverage, a key to my long work as a lobbyist here in Oregon.

In that blog, I listed nine steps in producing leverage — nine options, not all of which would be every time in trying to produce a solid result for a client.

I forgot one.

Is in the “tinker bell” strategy, which I attribute to my partner and friend, a lobbying mentor for me, Pat McCormick.

This strategy worked as follows.  You stand in the back of the hearing room and, with eyes tight shut, HOPE for the best.

Actually, on occasion for me, this hopeful strategy worked more effectively than all others.

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.

A former associate of mine, still a friend, Beth Remley, now with the well-positioned Salem lobby firm, Thorn Run, asked me a very good question the other day.

It was this:

“How do you create political leverage in the Capitol? Sometimes, you can’t win by lobbying on merit alone. You need political leverage — that is, a hook to make people care enough to get to 36, 16 and 1 (the number or votes to win respectively in the House, the Senate and the Governor’s Office).

“You might have the best arguments, but if your opposition has greater political leverage, you won’t prevail.”

As Beth suspected, my attempt to answer her question prompted me to write this blog about the subject, which is written as if I were giving advice to associates in my firm.

I define political leverage as the ability to increase your chances of winning (or at least finding acceptable middle ground) by using various resources at your disposal, such as those listed below. To some, political leverage often means making campaign contributions and making them so high that they “buy” the day.

But, if that’s all it is, then those of us who don’t have huge dollar war chests ought to give up.

1. First, I have seen many issues decided at the Capitol in Salem on the basis of the hard work of lobbyists. Call this the difference between PERSEVERANCE and being a PEST.

I often walked that line and, on occasion, became nearly guilty of being a pest, which, if true, would work in my disfavor.  But perseverance is a form of political leverage.  Use it.  Be steady and always involved — early in the morning and late at night.  Show up first at the Capitol and stay late because you never know when you will find the 30 seconds of access to a key legislator that matters in producing an outcome you want.

One of the best examples from my long career relates to a senator whom I needed to influence on a technical, though important, change in assisted suicide law after the procedure passed for the second time at the polls.

I found out that the senator whom I knew well had been out of town and was coming back to the Portland airport. So, I offered to his staff that I would pick him up at the airport.

That meant I had at least an hour when he would be “trapped” in my car as we headed back to Salem.  I used the time to persevere in lobbying him on the assisted suicide law change, which, due to his leadership, eventually became part of Oregon Revised Statutes.

So PERSEVERE, don’t PESTER.  If you do this right, you’ll be better that your competitors.

2. As I did in the above example, count on the relationships you have built with legislators before you have to use those relationships.  In other words, relationships are not something you develop overnight; they require long-term investment, including on the campaign trail before any legislative session.

Timing here is key. To be successful in any legislative session in Oregon you have to be involved in cultivating honest, ethical relationships before a session starts. Get to know candidates in their campaigns. Learn what makes them tick. Express interest in their views honed on the basis of where they live and work.

3. At the right time — in order words, before an official legislative session — make political contributions designed to illustrate that you care about electing smart legislators who have the wherewithal to make good decisions when faced with tough issues.

I have seen many cases where small contributions can be used to express support for a legislator and help to build a relationship that enables you to lobby more effectively inside a session.

It should be added that ethical lobbyists expect no direct results in exchange for contributions. There is no quid pro quo.

4. Find legislative champions on whom you can rely to do what you cannot do, which is to lobby behind the scenes and on the floors of both chambers. I have seen many cases where a champion was able almost to dictate the outcome on an issue – not to dictate in the sense of giving orders, but rather, to dictate by achieving results by strength of character and position.

5. Try to use anecdotes to help make your point. I oppose legislative policy that is developed only in response to anecdotes. But, at the same time, I also believe anecdotes, if used properly, can help legislators understand what really is at stake even if they don’t know the in’s and out’s of complicated policy formulations.

6. Deploy grassroots resources to make your point.  Advocacy from local places throughout Oregon can help to produce solid outcomes at the Capitol. Encourage those you work for or who share your point of view to communicate directly with legislators. Often, the best way to do so is by asking these “grassroots recourses” to write personal letters in their own handwriting advocating a point of view. That personal touch will help to distinguish such communications from the raft of social media texts legislators receive every day.
7. Consider using the media to help make your point. This may be tough to do because no one controls what the media writes, nor should there be such control.  But, in the past, I have worked to generate editorials that I then used, if they made the right point, to help lobby an issue.  I also would tend to focus on editorials, not just daily news coverage; editorials can be more compelling.

9. Build coalitions in the knowledge that anything that happens at the Capitol is often the product of a team, not the “I.” Coalitions illustrate that a piece of legislation works for the good of many, not just one.

9. Use the CEOs for whom you work to meet personally with key legislators, thus capitalizing on their “power.”

In all of this, I believe GOOD IDEAS still matter in the formation of legislative policy.  If I didn’t believe that, then my fabled 25-year career as a lobbyist was worthless. So, with your clients, develop good ideas and then work to build support for them using the tactics outlined above.

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.

One of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, got at least two things right this week in a piece she wrote for the Wall Street Journal.

The First Right: Trump said he would build something, do something.

Noonan reported that “in his morning Axios newsletter, Mike Allen said Capitol Hill is currently overstuffed with legislation, and GOP strategists say there’s a new plan to roll out a big program to rebuild roads and airports. They’ll push it off until next year. The thinking is that Democrats are likelier to back such a costly scheme closer to the midterm elections.

“That struck me as exactly wrong. The first year’s legislative agenda defines a new administration. Early programs stand out before everything, in the following three years, becomes a blur. Infrastructure is part of why Donald Trump was hired—he’s the builder, the magnate.

“It was for his supporters not a secondary but a primary issue—build something, do something. The unions and trade organizations back it, as would Americans who are nervous now whenever they go through a tunnel. Big endeavors can be promising in ways that aren’t always calculable. You can add a mentoring program to get teenagers, especially boys, off their couches and into the world of workers, especially men, who know how to do something and can teach it. That would be valuable to our culture.”

The Second Right: Trump announces and asserts. He doesn’t make a case for his proposals.

Noonan wrote: “An odd thing about the president—and this has contributed to the general lostness of Washington—is that he doesn’t perform a primary and obvious function of presidents, which is to argue for things. You make a decision, unveil a program, and make a case for its excellence. The other side then argues back. In the ensuing back-and-forth, voters get the contours of what’s being proposed.

“This president doesn’t argue, he only announces. He asserts. Previous presidents in their early speeches were always making the case for a certain advancement. Not to do so is a waste of the biggest mic in the world.”

Think of these two Noonan quotes:

• Trump got elected “to build something, to do something.” This is an obvious anti-thesis to the tendency in Washington, D.C to disagree and debate until it hurts, then not take any action, leaving stalemate in place.  Trump does the reverse.  He acts.

• Trump “doesn’t argue, he only announces. He asserts.” That’s not the traditional way of political figures who may announce and assert, but then go on to make a case for their position. Trump appears to feel that, when he says something, it is a true fact, without the need for argument.

My view is that all of us need to get used to this new presidential style. We don’t have to like it, but we should just get used to it. It may not be pretty or traditional and it won’t change.

But the Trump Administration should be judged, not on daily utterings or tweets, but on the longer-term challenges of getting a new job done in the bone-jarring back and forth of the Nation’s Capitol.

In politics, there are short-term and a long-term perspectives. The easy tendency is to look only at short-term considerations. I say take a long-term view.

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 written about campaigning versus government before, mostly in relation to the problem of the continual campaign getting in the way of the real work of political governance, the art of compromise.

But, based on a piece by Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger, an additional perspective came home to me.

It is this: The campaigning style does not lend itself to the governing style.

It is more than just avoiding compromise. It is being always about the business of rallying troops, currying favor with them and getting on the nerves of opponents who lost the most recent election, but will be back for more in two or four years.

Here is way Henninger put it.

“Donald Trump is right that the media is making a mountain out of every Trump molehill. Despite the ‘resistance,’ it also remains true that most Americans want the Trump presidency to succeed.

“These Trump Hopefuls, whose number includes people who didn’t vote for him, want the presidency to succeed because they understand that, if it fails, the social and economic condition of their country will be in a bad place.

“Despite this reservoir of goodwill for the Trump presidency, the degree of anxiety about it is palpable. You have to be living in Net-flixed isolation not to have had conversations with people wondering what the hell is going on at this White House.

“Beyond the Beltway bubble, I think most people look upon the pitched battle between Mr. Trump and the news media as they would a playground fight between sixth-graders.

“He hit me first.

“You hit first.

“You’re a liar.

“No, you’re the liar.”

“It is happening mainly because the presidential campaign didn’t end last November. The political culture of the 2017 campaign endures inside the White House and among the press and the Trump opposition.

“Presidential campaigns are an essential feature of the American political system—long, raucous, fiercely contested. But that glorious tumult is supposed to give way to the more substantial, harder politics of the presidency.

“But Mr. Trump himself can revert in an instant to campaign mode—Hillary’s failures, voter fraud and past media transgressions. Or a Florida presidential rally that looks just like a Florida campaign rally…But are the tactics of a campaign transferrable to the daily life of a presidency?

“Some will say the political world underestimated Donald Trump from day one. That’s true—but as a candidate. The presidency, by contrast, is one part of a large and complicated political system, complicated because the Founders wanted the process to be difficult and to require getting buy-in from unavoidably divided factions.”

“The Trump margin for delivering victory to these hopeful Americans is narrower than it should be. The president’s goals could falter or fail if enough Republicans running for election in 2020 decide their own needs require putting distance between themselves and the permanent volcano of the Trump White House. There will be no moral victories for a presidency that cannot produce 50 votes in the Senate.”

Kudos to Henninger.

He is exactly on target when he says campaigning does not produce governing. They are very different. They should be. The major question before all of us in America is whether Trump can stop campaigning and start governing.

If he cannot, we’re all in trouble. If he can, we’ll all be better for it.