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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
Forgive me for writing about myself. Better, I guess, that another blog devoted to Donald Trump.
Forgive me for writing about…myself.
But, with time on my hands these days, I have found myself recalling my experience as a state lobbyist.
One of the memories are some of the sayings I used to advocate for my clients.
Here is a brief summary:
That’s the first step down a slippery slope: This was a phrase I sometimes used to indicate that doing one thing could lead to another thing and the result would be the bad news of falling to the bottom. I advocated, don’t take the first step.
That’s like a circular firing squad: This was a phrase I used – not very often, perhaps – to indicate that taking a certain action without adequate thought could lead to more than one victim.
That’s like ready, shoot, aim: Similar to the phrase above, this was meant to indicate that a proposed action had not been vetted sufficiently.
What goes around comes around. This was a phrase used by legislators and lobbyists alike to indicate that one individual action often was not the end. What went around often came back in another form. It served to be a good reminder that individual actions are not just that – individual.
Your word is your bond: For me, this was less a saying than an aspiration. I conclude with the phrase because I thought it was a good mark of a successful, effective lobbyist – someone you could trust to stick to his or her word. And, if you said one thing at one time and then learned something new, you could buttress your credibility by correcting the record, indicating again that “your word was your bond.”
Think of this phrase.
It would be good if it marked, not only lobbyists, but all of us in society.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
This blog headline was drawn from a column by Frank Bruni that appeared in the New York Times.
It was so well-written and reasoned that once again I reprint it in total in this, my blog.
Bruni cuts to the heart of the matter as he assesses the vice-presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. If you look at the debate through a normal prism, then Vance won.
But, Bruni counsels, don’t use normal appraisals to assess aspects of this “abnormal election” between Democrats on one hand who may not be all we want them to be, and Republicans on the other hand who….read this paragraph:
“…are prepared to incite violence if it serves his purposes (Donald Trump’s purposes). We know that because he has done so already. That candidate will invent ugly fictions and promote illegal schemes to overturn the results of an election that doesn’t go his way. That’s not my paranoia talking; that’s his record. He places his vanity, his cupidity, his every want and whim above the integrity of our democracy, the dignity of the presidency and the welfare of the nation. Just a week of his social media posts and a month of his rallies make that clear.”
So, with this, here is Bruni’s column.
*********
I’m ashamed of myself.
During stretches of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, I found myself admiring — sort of — JD Vance. I awarded him points for unflappability, wishing Tim Walz could mimic that composure and tap a well of confidence as deep. I envied his crispness, willing Walz to state his case as clearly and cleanly.
Vance’s answers seemed to have commas, semi-colons and colons in all the right places, while Walz’s herky-jerky statements were linked (or not) by ellipses.
The paper-grading professor in me gave Vance a high mark, Walz a barely passing one.
But the 2024 election isn’t an essay contest. Nor is it a beauty pageant, with the debates functioning as the interview segment. It’s a morality play. It’s about fundamental values. And Vance’s are rotten, no matter how much oratorical perfume he sprays on them, no matter how eloquently he diverts you from the stench.
The hell of the debate matched the hell of this presidential campaign, in which there’s a temptation — a pull — to evaluate performance, parse communication or dissect policy, employing criteria that we attentive citizens have used across the decades. But such assessments are utterly beside the point.
The race for president pits a Democratic ticket with many shortcomings against a Republican ticket with no scruples whatsoever, decency against indecency, respect for the democratic process against unfettered ambition, and psychological stability (Kamala Harris) against a spectacular lack thereof (you know who).
In that context, it’s pointless, even reckless, to dwell on Walz’s visible nervousness during the debate or his many missed opportunities.
Yes, he failed to nail Vance appropriately and effectively for spreading the dangerous calumny — or is it cookery? — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating other people’s pets. Yes, that suggested a discouraging limit to Walz’s political skills.
But it didn’t erase those lies, just as Vance’s mild, even milquetoast manner on the debate stage didn’t expunge his record of hateful, bigoted remarks that demonize whole groups of Americans in the interest of whipping his followers into an election-delivering frenzy.
Vance would drive a truck through and over a huddle of thirsty people if they were the sole obstacle between him and higher office. Walz would hit the brakes, climb out of his vehicle and offer them some of his Diet Mountain Dew.
Our reflexes prompt us to observe and analyze this election as we have many others, and so some of us chide Harris for avoiding interviews and, when she does give one, often leaning on vague, canned answers. That’s a fair, worthy complaint to the extent that it’s pushing a person who’s seeking the most powerful office in the world to flex her intellectual nimbleness and present a comprehensive plan.
Some of us tuned in to the vice-presidential debate to gauge Walz’s steadiness in circumstances with higher stakes and higher visibility than the ones he was accustomed to before Harris made him her running mate, and we’re disappointed that he wasn’t sturdier.
That’s understandable, and that’s responsible in and of itself. Walz could end up a proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency.
In addition to which, the range of skills that he and the other players in the presidential contest demonstrate and the degree of competence that they project could determine the election’s outcome. Those factors are tactically relevant.
But as I wrote last week and will surely write again before Nov. 5, the normal stuff — the details of one economic proposal versus another, the major and minor line items on the candidates’ curricula vitae — doesn’t matter in this abnormal election, because a single consideration nullifies all others.
It’s this:
One candidate is prepared to incite violence if it serves his purposes. We know that because he has done so already. That candidate will invent ugly fictions and promote illegal schemes to overturn the results of an election that doesn’t go his way. That’s not my paranoia talking; that’s his record. He places his vanity, his cupidity, his every want and whim above the integrity of our democracy, the dignity of the presidency and the welfare of the nation. Just a week of his social media posts and a month of his rallies make that clear.
And the crucial takeaway from the vice-presidential debate was Vance’s audacious claim — I questioned my own hearing — that Donald Trump honored the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another when his administration ended and Joe Biden’s began. In what alternate timeline? In what parallel universe?
With that comment and with others, Vance laundered and sanctioned Trump’s depravity, telling us not merely that he stands with Trump but that he sinks every bit as low as Trump.
I’ll take all the ellipses in creation over that exclamation point.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
Washington Post columnist Matt Bai wrote the other day to express deep concern about a man who could become president.
Yes, J.D. Vance who, if he becomes vice president alongside a man, Donald Trump who will be 78-years-old if he becomes president, perish the thought.
About Vance, Bai said, “He is not just a running mate, but a man who stands a significant chance of running the country.”
For me, that statement rings even more foreboding after Vance managed to create a false impression in the debate yesterday against Democrat Tim Walz — a false impression that he was reasonable and reasoned, without, unfortunately, having to defend many of the crazy things he has said and done over the last few weeks.
Though I didn’t watch debate – I don’t watch such things anymore – what I read in national newspapers the day after suggested that Vance came across as a different person than he actually is, which is that he wants to be like Donald Trump and to lead the MAGA crowd.
More from Bai in what he wrote before the debate:
“To understand why Vance could be the most consequential figure on either presidential ticket this year, and why you should pay close attention to his debate with Tim Walz, consider what almost happened to Richard M. Nixon.
“In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower needed a running mate and settled on Nixon, a 39-year-old first-term senator and military veteran, who had found instant celebrity among his party’s arch-conservatives for his ardent, often misleading attacks on alleged communists. Nixon was, in other words, eerily similar to Vance — at least in his résumé.
“What you might not remember is that in 1955, Eisenhower, who at 65 was considered a notably old president, suffered a massive heart attack while on a golfing trip in Denver. That Ike survived was pretty much a flip of the coin. Had he died, America would have seen the Nixon presidency 14 years earlier than it actually did.”
Bai added that “we should not get to Election Day without pausing to consider that Trump is 78 and, statistically speaking, far more likely to die in office than the vast majority of our presidents were. Which means we have to evaluate Vance, not just as a No. 2, but also as a man who stands a significant chance of running the country.”
Bai worries about what that would mean – and, given Vance’s real history, so do I.
Bai said that, “Like Trump in 2016, Vance has virtually no political experience; his only qualification when he ran for Senate two years ago — yes, it was that recent — was having written a best-selling memoir.
“We have only his accumulated rhetoric to go on — and the more you analyze that, the more it seems like maybe a job for a therapist rather than a policy expert.
“While other aspects of Vance’s worldview have come and gone depending on what’s expedient, one thing has remained chillingly consistent. Vance is bizarrely obsessed with setting down rules for women in society, almost as if this were something America’s women were pleading with him to clarify.
His view, Bai writes, can be summarized this way:
“This His I won’t compile a list here of his various moral edicts (others have), but I think we can fairly summarize Vance’s worldview this way: =e biological purpose of women is to have children, and after they’ve raised those children, their only remaining purpose is to raise their children’s children. If they don’t have children, then they are ancillary members of the community and should have less say in how we’re governed. And if they weren’t born here, or if they’re gay or transgender, then they’re polluting the common culture.”
And this from Bai:
“Vance stands at the vanguard of the millennials — the first American generation to see life as public performance, an unending series of selfies and posts and provocation.
“And maybe that’s the key to understanding him. I think he attaches no real meaning to governance, beyond the opportunity to be an influencer. He affects a nerdier, more cerebral veneer than Trump, but in this they are the same: The point of the whole exercise is to be seen.
“Take a hard look at Vance, a man who could well become president overnight, and decide for yourself whether he is a kind of holy warrior for male superiority and White culture or whether he’s simply settled on the persona that makes him viral.”
I hope women, as they vote in the next few weeks, will take a hard look at both Trump and Vance and end up believing that their tarnished view of women would be going back, not forward.
I add that, the other day on a cruise from Montreal and back to Montreal – yes, that takes 10 days on the St. Lawrence River – I looked again at an old movie, “The American President.”
Good respite from focusing on today’s politics.
One of the stars, Michael Douglas, was shown making a great statement to the press about his girlfriend (he was a widower) who had come under political attack.
The line I remember was this: “In this country we have serious problems and we need serious people who will deal with them.”
Not buffoons like Trump and Vance who see themselves as the center of their universe, which is anti-women – not to mention anti-the rest of us.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
I wrote this headline to summarize other passengers on our cruise in Canada aboard the Oceania lines ship “Insignia.”
My wife, Nancy, and I look around and all we see are old people.
Glad that, well, we are not among them.
Some signs of age among the passengers:
The musical bands aboard play mostly slow music. My wife used as good to describe it – melancholy.
The stage shows memorialize a day gone by. What were the Gatsby’s anyway?
It usually is best to walk slowly behind folks as they make their way around the ship. Otherwise, you bump into them.
We have been on several Oceania ships over the years.
Typically, guests tend to be 55-plus, with a mix of couples, solo travelers, and families with adult children looking for a food and beverage-focused experience. There is mix of well-known and off-the-beaten-path ports of call. While children are allowed onboard, there is no kids’ programming.
On several Oceania ships, including Insignia, the total of bookings is no more than 1,250 – in other words small by comparison to many other ships in other lines.
While on-line sources use the 55-plus number above, the average age of travelers is actually between 65 and 70.
This time, we boarded Insignia in Montreal and traveled down the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic coast, then will be heading back to Montreal over the next few days.
So, to my fellow travelers, I say, (a) it is good to be with you, and (b) please move faster so us youngsters can make quicker progress.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
There is a place in Oregon – Silvies Ranch in far Eastern Oregon – where goats play a key role.
On a four-hole special course, they carry golf bags around for golfers who show up.
Now, there is a second site where goats play a role.
A story in the Oregonian newspaper appeared under this headline: Goats and a llama are chowing down on weeds at Eastmoreland Golf Course
Here is what story said:
“The grounds at Portland’s Eastmoreland Golf Course are getting some natural grooming, thanks to 10 goats, and a llama named Dewey, who have all been lending their weed and grass-munching talents to the course since September 21.
“According to a press release from Portland Parks and Recreation, the four-legged groundskeepers came on the job after the parks bureau and golf management firm KemperSports contracted with goat-renting company, GoGoatOregon.
“The goats and llama have been doing their chewing at Eastmoreland’s 13th hole, which features a ravine which bisects the par-5 fairway. “Overgrown weeds on its steep banks are expected to be giving the animals’ jaws a workout for an estimated two to three weeks.
“’The llama has already deterred a curious coyote,’ John Ball, Portland Parks & Recreation maintenance supervisor at Eastmoreland and RedTail Golf Courses, said in the press release. ‘He and the goats are exceeding my expectations, having a great time eating all the leaves and they are super cute. It’s awesome watching them work.’
“’It’s not only a way to bring smiles to people’s faces,’ Portland Parks Golf Director Vincent Johnson said in the release. ‘But goats are effective and eco-friendly. This is about caring for a valuable recreational asset and furthering the environmental stewardship that is a core part of Portland Parks Golf philosophy and practices.’”
So, the good news here is that goats – and the llama – are doing their work in Portland and enjoying every minute of it.
In sports, the word “goat” often stands for “greatest of all time.” These animals meet that definition.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
New York Times writer, Frank Bruni, has an idea for Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
But rather than make a suggestion or two, he wrote a column with this introduction:
“There’s sustained criticism that Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t provided detailed answers to questions about changes in her positions. Why can’t candidates own that kind of transformation? What would be wrong, in Harris’s case, with saying something like this?”
************
It’s true that I once sang a softer, more permissive tune about the U.S. border, even raising my hand, along with other Democrats, during that frequently mentioned 2020 primary debate when we were asked if we would decriminalize illegal crossings.
Unlike another presidential candidate I needn’t name, I’m not going to fictionalize history.
But I also don’t feel bound by my own.
None of us should, because we’re always learning and always growing, or at least we should be: That’s a sign of humility, curiosity, openness.
Show me someone who believes and says the exact same things about the world that she did 20 or 10 or even five years ago and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t been properly living in it.
I spoke of banning fracking, but I know more now. That’s why I don’t speak of it any longer. When I did, my political experience was confined largely to California, whose residents had been my primary obligation, and that state’s energy, industrial and environmental profiles differ from the country’s.
But as vice president, I’ve looked at all of America, through the eyes of all its residents, and that has afforded me a panoramic education and view.
I better understand the disruption that an imminent end to fracking would cause. I better understand the enormous national asset of an array of energy sources. I have adapted and adjusted accordingly.
Why do so many vice presidents run for president? Sure, it’s because we’ve been eyeing and ogling that gilded station up close and, in most cases, we had designs on it before we settled for first runner-up.
But it’s also because our proximity to power has given us an extraordinary trove of information, an unrivaled exposure to expertise and a privileged series of lessons. We’re better prepared than we once were — we’re smarter. And smarter means we’ve revisited many of our past assumptions. How could it be any other way?
In many senses, I’m the same person I was when I became a prosecutor and then a district attorney and then the attorney general of California and then a U.S. senator and now the vice president. There’s no rewriting or erasing how my mother brought me up — to work hard, fight for justice and respect everyone.
There’s no reconfiguring the shape and bigness of my heart. That’s what I mean when I say that my values haven’t changed. I’ve taken and will always take the positions that, in my best judgment, are as fair as they can be to the largest number of people while also being as sensitive as possible to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable among us.
But my judgment is no more fixed than our circumstances, which are ever in flux, and my comprehension of them, which is ever more refined. I revise it in accordance with where we are, what we need at that moment, and my increasingly mature assessment of what we can hope to accomplish.
So, I’m a different person, too — enlarged by accruing experiences, additional insights, fresh epiphanies.
You can be cynical and call that rudderless. Or you can be generous and call it dynamic. Flipping and flopping are fluidity by other names.
I don’t know when we became so obsessed with “gotcha” revelations of a politician’s swerves, and I don’t know why we cast them as character defects. They aren’t, not necessarily. And to any reasonable voter, they should matter less than a politician’s truthfulness, empathy and efforts to unite Americans. Judge me on those scores.
Judge my opponent that way, too. Ask yourselves which of us is living in a realm of facts.
Which is being more careful not to incite Americans to fear and hatred of one another. And — you bet — which is spreading more joy.
By all means, consider our constancy.
But consider it in the present: Which of us seems more emotionally stable? Which delivers the same message on Tuesday as on Saturday and to one group of voters as to another? Are the positions and intentions that we’re articulating now clear and sensible?
I think that matters more than a timeline of my remarks about private health insurance.
I’m not some Marxist in hiding. I’m not some moderate come lately. I’m a work in earnest progress.
And I hope never to see the day when I can no longer say that.
*********
One point I especially like about what Bruni wrote is this:
“… we’re always learning and always growing, or at least we should be: That’s a sign of humility, curiosity, openness.
“Show me someone who believes and says the exact same things about the world that she did 20 or 10 or even five years ago and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t been properly living in it.”
Point made.
It’s another way for Harris to explain why she may have changed positions on such issues as fracking. If I said one thing a few years ago, then didn’t learn a thing by making the same point years later, I am not smart.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
Freddie Couples and I have something in common.
No, not great golf.
It’s just that, given our respective old ages – I am about 10 years older than Freddie – the clubs in our golf bags look the same.
I found this out when I read one of my regular on-line golf magazines.
Here is how the article started.
“Telltale signs of aging: Gray hair, balky back, golf bag filled with hybrids.
“These days, Fred Couples checks all those boxes. But even at 64, with a silver mane, assorted aches and pains, and a much slower swing speed than he once possessed, the famously laidback veteran retains his youthful spirit. And he’s not too proud to poke fun at himself.”
Poking fun involves admitting that he carries a lot of hybrids.
I do, too.
Freddie’s longest iron in his bag is a 7. Mine is a 6.
More from the golf magazine:
“With a camera on him as he stands in the fairway of the par-4 8th hole, Couples is asked about the arsenal of woods and hybrids he now carries. Six altogether.
“’Everyone keeps talking about ‘em,’ he says of his newly configured setup. Other golfers might be embarrassed. Couples simply shrugs off the stigma. ‘I’m like, so my longest iron is a 7. Who cares?’”
Age drains distance from every golfer’s game – including mine — and, as Couples detailed at the Masters earlier this year, long and mid-irons are also no good for his balky back.
At one point, informed by his caddie that he had 177 yards remaining to the green, Couples didn’t hesitate in club selection.
“’A little 6-rescue for the boys,’ he says before flushing an approach that earns the approval of his playing partner, Jay Haas. ‘6?’ Haas asks.
“’6-rescue,” Couples replies. ‘Better than the 5. You know, I couldn’t hit that with a 6-iron. I’m not strong enough anymore. I hate to say that.’”
Like Freddie, I don’t much like having to admit that I cannot hit clubs the same distance as I used to years ago.
But, the salvation is that, at my advanced, I am still on the golf course – hybrids and all!
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
To the question in this blog headline, I answer “no.”
So does Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont. He said so in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal yesterday – and I agree with him.
This arose, at least in part, because of a column written for the Journal by Peggy Noonan, who does a good job normally. Not this time.
She averred that Harris is short on policy, which prompted Lamont to write.
Of course, one of the underlying questions is whether voters cast ballots based on policy or character – or something else. For me and Lamont, character is more important than policy because solid character can lead to solid policy.
On this count, Harris stands head and shoulders above Donald Trump who wouldn’t know a policy if it hit him in the face.
“Columnists have belittled the purity of presidential candidates forever; the Abraham Lincoln vs. Stephen Douglas Senate race was slammed as a choice between the better of two evils. Really?
“I won’t opine on awful, but let me speak to empty. Noonan says that Vice President Harris lacks specifics because she doesn’t know, doesn’t care or doesn’t want you to know.”
Lamont they listed policies Harris advocates – and the list is good one because it counters the notion from columnist Noonan and others that Harris is light on policy.
From Lamont:
On foreign policy, I know where she stands on arming the Ukrainian freedom fighters. Former President Trump says end the war on day one — whatever that means — but I would wait to find out if I were Vladimir Putin. Harris knows that working with our allies makes America stronger; Trump, not so much.
On trade, Harris wants to bring our supply chains closer to home, especially with national-security assets, and toughen our negotiating position with adversaries like China and Russia. Trump’s tariffs would punish friend and foe alike, and Americans will pay the price.
Noonan characterizes the Harris “economic opportunity tour” as an evasive dodge. I believe that most of us understand it to mean that the era of free money is over, but that the Harris Administration will help you get the skills for a better job and make it easier to start a business or own a home.
We know where Harris stands on immigration. She understands the value of legal immigration and wants more tools from Congress to fight illegal immigration. As with trade and our allies, where Trump doesn’t know the difference between friend and foe, he doesn’t like immigration — period. “They’re poisoning the blood our country,” he said.
Lamont then asks and answers the question that lurks behind any presidential campaign. Are we better off today than we were four years ago?
Lamont’s answer:
“Four years ago, the economy was in the ditch and stores were boarded up, with sage brush blowing down empty streets and big unemployment. Blame it all on Covid, then acknowledge that some of the comeback inflation was Covid-related as well, but we are better off than four years ago, and Harris can argue that we are only getting started.
“I think we know the difference between awful and not-so-empty.
Noonan argues that Harris spends too much time on biography — who she is, why she is and why she believes what she does.”
Lamont disagrees, saying that Harris’ biography is part of what commends her to Americans.
Then, to end, Lamont makes a great point, one with which I absolutely agree:
“I still make a laundry list of candidates’ positions on everything from tax rates to prescription-drug prices, but as the years march on, I put more and more emphasis on character.
“Teddy Roosevelt is reputed to have said, ‘Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.’ We know a lot about both candidates on the issues and on character.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
If you look in the dictionary, it’s hard to find the word “aerification.”
Perhaps it’s a made-up word, but all golfers know what it means.
The golf course will be closed to play for about a week!
But what is aerification really? To get more information, I looked up the process in materials provided by the United States Golf Association (USGA). Without going into ultimate detail, here is what I found:
“The USGA’s Green Section has been helping golf courses deliver the best possible playing conditions for nearly 100 years. USGA agronomists work with golf facilities across North America to help them create and maintain environmentally and economically sustainable golf courses that give you the best playing experience, even if you have to occasionally play on aerated putting greens.
“Aerating putting greens might create a short-term disruption in your game, but the long-term benefits greatly outweigh the inconvenience. Here are five things every golfer to know:
We aerate to improve, not annoy
Putting greens receive more traffic than any other playing surface. The aeration process helps relieve the compaction caused by all that traffic. It also helps create a firm, smooth putting surface by controlling thatch and promoting healthy turf roots.
Scratch the thatch
Thatch is a layer of old plant material that accumulates at the soil surface. If thatch on putting greens is not diluted by aeration and topdressing, it will act like a sponge, holding water near the surface. Excessive thatch creates soft playing conditions, inconsistent green speeds ,and increases the risk of disease.
Timing is everything
Do you ever wonder why aeration is commonly performed when putting greens are playing their best? Aerating when grass is healthy and actively growing minimizes damage and allows for a quick return to optimal playing conditions. Aerating at other times may be more convenient for the golf schedule, but it lengthens recovery times, increases the risk of an invasion of weeds and could cause lasting damage.
It may seem like there are more holes than grass on the putting greens right after they’ve been aerated, but this is an illusion. Typically, aeration affects less than 10 percent of a putting surface.
Sand is part of the plan
A heavy application of top-dressing following aeration may appear to make putting greens less playable. However, filling aeration holes with sand actually helps create a smoother surface. Sand also creates channels for water and air movement, dilutes thatch and helps putting greens recover from aeration more quickly.
Now, to this I add that on the course where I play most of my golf, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in Salem, Oregon, aerification does not occur only on the greens. It is also done on the fairways and tee boxes.
Overall, the current process went well, except for the fact that some equipment broke, a fact-of-life for any greens superintendent.
I have seen all of this in my forty or so years of playing golf, so I am used to it. And, this weekend, with my golf course open for the first time in a week, I may go play in the sandbox.
Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
Here is a follow-up to what I wrote yesterday about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance who are telling lies after lies.
Besides that, Vance has admitted that he “creates” stories to generate media attention.
A far better word would be “concocts.”
He was proud of admitting that the concocted the story he told about Haitian immigrants eating local cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, so the media would pay attention.
Here is what he told the New York Times:
Vance Sticks By Pet-Eating Claims and Says He’s Willing to ‘Create Stories
“Vance, who amplified false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, said he was willing ‘to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention.’
There.
Vance admits to his dishonesty, citizens in Ohio, those he “sort of represents” be damned.
Perspective from the 19th Hole 