Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A critic of this blog headline might say that I arrived at this position – not rooting as much for University of Oregon football — because of last weekend’s underwhelming performance.

I suppose, partly yes.

But the real reason is that, after thinking about this off and on for several months, I decry what the U of O – and other West Coast universities – did:  They went for the money, loyalty be damned.

Sure, heading for the money dominates many sports, including one of my favorites, golf, where many top players bolted for the now three-year-old LIV Tour rather than staying with the PGA Tour, which had made them rich…rich enough.

But when the U of O bolted for the Big 10 (which, I add, why is it still called the Big 10 when it now includes 18 institutions?), it left Oregon which had given it years of support.

At one point, as the bolting occurred, U of O President Karl Scholz said “the university left the Pac-12 to remain financially stable and self-sufficient, noting that its athletic department was self-funded and would remain so.  The move to the Big Ten will provide ‘stability and visibility’ for the Ducks.”

Sounds okay, I suppose.

But the statement turns it back on the Northwest.  Going for “the money” instead of making things better here.

Joining the so-called “Big 10” will mean one thing for football, which has money to burn.  But it will mean for other sports, with a lot of travel out of the West Coast.

So, enough of the U of O for me.

I also worry about the future of the PAC 2 – Oregon State University and Washington State University.  They deserve consideration, whatever that may be, as they strive to survive.

For now, good that they have stayed home —  unlike the U of O and the University of Washington.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Writing in The Atlantic Magazine, Tom Nichols makes the point in the headline.

Unfortunately, it appears to be true these days as Kamala Harris runs against Donald Trump who doesn’t care much for policy.  He doesn’t even know what the term means.

He prefers invective against — any and all.

Nichols summarizes the status this way:

“The Kamala Harris campaign seems to understand that it is pointless to run against Donald Trump on policy.  Despite criticism from the press and demands for more policy details, Harris and Tim Walz have adopted a pragmatic strategy after their national convention.”

At the Convention, the Obamas, Barack and Michelle, were reported to have done a great job on two counts – (a) advocating for Harris as a candidate who would continue building the “hope and change” emphasis, and (b) skewering Trump as a candidate out for only himself.

Michelle delivered one of the best lines when she wondered if Trump knew that “one of the ‘Black jobs’ he had contended were going to immigrants could actually go to Harris!

So, I guess, bid policy farewell and hope that Harris’ momentum keeps up.

On the other hand, another analyst suggested that, as the campaign continues for a few weeks, policy issues may assert themselves as being important – policy beyond the descriptions of the candidates themselves.

If that is true, my sense is that Harris will be prepared for policy if such issues advance and Trump will still find himself flummoxed, for policy is not a strong suit for him, or , in fact, any suit at all.

No less a seasoned political analyst than James Carville showed up in the New York Times this week to advocate that Harris needs to do three things to defeat Trump:

1. Don’t get in Trump’s way as he hurts himself by his over-the-top conduct, especially in presidential debates.

• Break from President Joe Biden to set her own policy course, even if, as stated above, policy may not matter very much in the minds of some voters.

• Display growth from the last time she ran for president in 2020.

If she does this, Carville concluded with this:

“Throughout my nearly 40 years in the campaign war rooms, through every election loss and victory, one thing has remained consistent:  The most thunderous sound in politics is the boom of a single page as it turns from one chapter to the next.

“This November, will we drag ourselves back again, succumbing to politics of fear and anger, or instead do the most audacious thing we can and once more turn the page to a new chapter in American life?

“I know that Kamala Harris represents that next chapter. If she stays fresh, soon the American people will, too.”

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

If anyone needed any more information to verify this blog headline – Donald Trump knows nothing about military service – look no farther than last week.

According to Atlantic Magazine, Trump visited the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery, where many of America’s war dead are buried.  There, with thumbs up, Trump posed for photos.

And, then, he did was he always does – by his conduct, he verified that he knows absolutely nothing about genuine military service.  A fact that should disqualify him from trying to serve again as the Commander in Chief.

The Atlantic goes on – and I reprint a lot of story here because it provides solid facts about Trump abhorrent behavior:

“In the strangest of these pictures, the former president is smiling and giving a thumbs-up by the grave of a Marine.

“It’s an image of a man who has no idea how to behave around fallen heroes.

“Trump was at Arlington ostensibly to honor the memory of the 13 service members who were killed in a suicide bombing during the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The event was supposed to be respectful and private; according to a press-pool note, the families of the troops had asked that there be no media coverage in the area where the service members were buried.  

“But Trump seemed to have other ideas.

“According to a report by NPR, Trump’s campaign staff got into a verbal and physical altercation with a cemetery official who tried to stop campaign staffers from filming and taking photographs in the area of the cemetery reserved for recently fallen soldiers.

“The cemetery confirmed that an incident took place, but did not provide any details, instead noting in a statement that federal law prohibits ‘political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries.’

“Trump-campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that ‘there was no physical altercation as described,’ and added in a post on X that Trump had been allowed a private photographer on the premises.

“But in his statement, Cheung also accused the cemetery official who’d tried to block Trump’s staff of ‘clearly suffering from a mental health episode.’

“It’s hard to see Trump’s visit as anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote.

“Speaking to a group of National Guard members in Detroit later that day, he blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“By now, Trump’s use of the military as a prop for his own ends should surprise no one.  Despite his vigorous avoidance of military service, Trump has a long history of denigrating the service of others, even as he poses as a defender of the nation’s military.

“As a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2015, he mocked Senator John McCain’s status as a prisoner of war.  ‘He’s not a war hero,’ Trump said at the time.  ‘I like people who weren’t captured.’

“Later, as president, he told his then–chief of staff John Kelly that he didn’t want ‘any wounded guys’ in his planned Independence Day parade:  ‘This doesn’t look good for me.’

“But Trump is especially out of place around the nation’s fallen troops.

“As reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, Trump went to Arlington Cemetery with Kelly on Memorial Day 2017 and visited the gravesite of Kelly’s son Robert, who had been killed in Afghanistan.

“Standing next to the former Marine general, Trump said:  ‘I don’t get it. What was in it for them?’

“In 2018, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris; as Goldberg reported, Trump told staff members that the cemetery was ‘filled with losers.’

“Trump also ‘referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who’d lost their lives at Belleau Wood as suckers for getting killed,’ according to Goldberg’s reporting.”

That’s enough, except for this comment from me.

Trump denigrates the service of the military, thus indicating that a person who didn’t serve – and got out of service obligations by a variety of shenanigans — doesn’t understand the first thing about the idea of service for the nation.

So, then, why do some of my good friends who say they value military service continue supporting Trump? 

There is no rational explanation.

Just as there is not for Trump!

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

On this Labor Day holiday, I choose to write, not about typical political rallies on such a day as this, but, instead, about a political issue that will roil debates in Oregon for a number of months.

It is this:

If state revenue – read, taxpayer money – arrives in government coffers 2 per cent above previous estimates, should the money stay with the state or be returned to taxpayers?

At the moment, under a law that rests in the Oregon Constitution – it is called the “kicker” law – the money goes back to taxpayers.  Put another way to illustrate the label, it is “kicked” back to taxpayers.

This raises a political issue that has been with us in Oregon since the kicker law was passed in 1979.

Many Democrats, who are in charge in Oregon, want to keep the money to spend on state programs.  By contrast, many Republicans want the money to be kicked back.

So far, those who favor the kicked back approach have won most of the political debates and my sense, again this time, is that the kicker law will stay in place.

The reason:  If you ask taxpayers, most want “their money” back.

The kicker law passed about 40 years ago because those in charge of Oregon’s political process at the time believed it was important to place a lid on how much money government could spend.  Otherwise, the state would just spend ALL the money.

This issue arose again last week as state economists told legislators that more money continues to arrive in state coffers.  As reported by the Oregonian newspaper, the prediction is that Oregonians, in total, will receive a $987 million kicker tax credit in 2026.

On another hand, even with the kicker refund, the increased tax revenue means that lawmakers will have $676 million more than previously expected to allocate in next year’s legislative session.  That, too – more money overall — will argue in favor of the kicker staying in place.

Beyond the kicker, the state’s economy remains stable as inflation rates continue to cool.  There are positive signs, like a low unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent, but there are also challenges, such as ongoing layoffs by some of the state’s largest employers.

Corporate and personal income taxes have outpaced expectations since the last economic forecast in June.  At that time, economists indicated that there was a “50-50 proposition” that Oregonians would receive a kicker tax credit in 2026 of $582 million.  That is now up a bit.

Meanwhile, on another state revenue front, the Legislature will likely consider several potential funding sources for next year’s transportation package, including increasing the gas tax or implementing a tax on the number of miles every Oregonian drives.

Top Republicans have indicated that they will not support any increased or new taxes, but it is possible the 2025 Legislature will feature super-majorities on the part of Democrats, which means they can pass tax increases without any Republican support.

In the old lobbying phrase, “only time will tell.”

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate for president, has come under scrutiny from the media for having changed some of her positions, including on fracking and a single-payer-system.

In the early excerpts of as prime time interview with CBS, Harris addressed criticism that her positions have shifted significantly on major issues, including climate change and immigration, saying several times, “My values have not changed.”

I find that to be a solid and sincere statement to explain her changes, though she surely will face continuing questions on such subjects as climate change and immigration along the presidential campaign trail.

And, I add quickly that it is not possible to suggest that Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, changes positions, for he has none in the first place.  So, change is simply not possible.

All Trump does is bluster, saying the first thing that comes into his mind, then allowing the bluster to cross his lips, without any attention paid to honesty or accuracy.

For me, my perceptions on the “changing positions” issue stem mostly from my 25 years as a lobbyist in Oregon where I dealt with members of the State Legislature.

There, I saw lawmakers change positions from to time.

So, I came up with this list of possible reasons for a change.

• Flip-flopping:  This is a negative word meaning that the politician cannot figure out what his or her position is, so they go back and forth without much thinking.

• Learning more than you knew at first:  This is positive.  Lawmakers who are trying to do “the right thing,” often learn something when they get to the Capitol in Salem because, to state the obvious, they do not know everything on the day they arrive.  So, their positions may change.

• Recognizing changing political winds:  This can be both positive and negative.  If a politician simply puts his or her finger to the political winds before deciding what their position or changing their position, then they are just responding to the wind.  But, if they recognize the reality of politics and change positions given a rational look at the winds, then that is positive – or at least can be.

Even so, changing positions can be a negative that comes to roost during an election campaign.

Consider this example that had a lot to do with losing a major election.

It was 2004 and the George W. Bush re-election operation took one equivocation from Democrat challenger John Kerry about an Iraq funding bill — “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it” — and ran Bush’s entire campaign based on it.

“Kerry’s vote itself,” a New York Times writer said, “wasn’t so important as what the Bush campaign convinced people it said about Kerry’s character.

“As the Times described it at the time, ‘Kerry aides dismiss the sentence as the inevitable verbal hiccup that comes when candidates engage voters in informal settings and complained that the Bush campaign has ripped out of context a perfectly reasonable explanation of the back-and-forth reality of Congress.’

“But Bush’s team contended it was emblematic of the larger case they were making against Kerry:  That he was a flip-flopping Washington insider unqualified to lead the nation in wartime.”

Reflecting on this case, I do remember it.  And my view:  I would give Kerry space to change in mind about a tough issue without charging him with negative flip-flopping.

And, finally, I think Kamala Harris has an adroit way to explain changes when she says “her values have not changed.”

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The question in this blog headline arises because of a recent prediction that Democrats have a decent chance to come up with supermajorities in the 2025 Oregon Legislature.

That means three-fifths margins in the 60-member Oregon House and 3—member Oregon Senate.

My view, in a word, bad.

Why?

If one party controls by a supermajority, then bi-partisanship is less likely.  Perhaps even impossible.

I say this after my 40 years involved in the legislative process in Oregon, though I have now been retired for more than six years.

Does that make me right?  No.

It just means I have a view, which I can buttress by experience.

When the House and Senate were split evenly back a number of years ago, there was no option but to find public policy solutions somewhere in the middle.  And that’s often where the best solutions lie anyway – perhaps not the exact middle, but somewhere in the middle.

When one party controls the process, especially by a supermajority, it can dictate the outcome, sometimes without considering minority viewpoints.

Better, I contend, to have both parties involved in finding the best solutions.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The question in this blog headline arises because of a recent prediction that Democrats have a decent chance to come up with supermajorities in the 2025 Oregon Legislature.

That means three-fifths margins in the 60-member Oregon House and 3—member Oregon Senate.

My view, in a word, bad.

Why?

If one party controls by a supermajority, then bi-partisanship is less likely.  Perhaps even impossible.

I say this after my 40 years involved in the legislative process in Oregon, though I have now been retired for more than six years.

Does that make me right?  No.

It just means I have a view, which I can buttress by experience.

When the House and Senate were split evenly back a number of years ago, there was no option but to find public policy solutions somewhere in the middle.  And that’s often where the best solutions lie anyway – perhaps not the exact middle, but somewhere in the middle.

When one party controls the process, especially by a supermajority, it can dictate the outcome, sometimes without considering minority viewpoints.

Better, I contend, to have both parties involved in finding the best solutions.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A question came up the other day on the golf course where I play, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in Salem, Oregon.

As relayed to me by a friend of mine, the question dealt with this issue:  Is there a penalty in golf if you happen to hit your ball twice?  And, are there different rules for hitting twice on the regular course or on the green?

The answer to both:  No.

Official Golf Rule 10.1a says this:  “If a player’s club accidentally hits the ball more than once during a single stroke, there will be no penalty and the ball will be played as it lies.”

The ruling is the same no matter where you are on the course – on or off the green.

When the question came up, I thought I knew the answer.  Under the golf rules re-write in 2019, the change was that there was no penalty for double-hitting.  But I was not sure whether the same rule applied to double-strokes on the green.  It does.

So, in golf you learn something every day, including about the often-arcane subject of rules applying to the game.

Speaking of golf rules, there was another fascinating issue in the BMW Championship completed last weekend.

Golf Digest described the situation under this headline:  Matt Fitzpatrick was denied the chance to replace his cracked driver.  Was that the correct call?

During the final round of the BMW, Fitzpatrick noticed a crack in his Titleist TSi3 driver on the 8^th tee.  He sought to replace the damaged club under Model Local Rule G-9, but his request was denied.

Why?

The model rule reads as follows:  “If a player’s club is ‘broken or significantly damaged’ during the round by the player or caddie, except in cases of abuse, the player may replace the club with any club under Rule 4.1b(4).

“For the purposes of this rule, a club is ‘broken or significantly damaged’ when:  The shaft breaks into pieces, splinters or is bent (but not when the shaft is only dented); the club face impact area is visibly deformed (but not when the club face is only scratched); the clubhead is visibly and significantly deformed; the clubhead is detached or loose from the shaft; or the grip is loose.

But here’s the rub.  A club face or clubhead is not “broken or significantly damaged solely because it is cracked.”  It has to be fully, not partially, cracked.

That’s the rule that caught Fitzpatrick.

Understandably, he was angry, but he played the rest of the round without a driver.  Still, at Castle Pines, which is a mile above sea level, a golfer of Fitzpatrick’s ability, can hit his three-wood – ah, wait, three-metal – more than 300 yards off the tee.

For me, a bit of a rules nut, I think the rule should be changed.  Any crack, not caused by abuse, should mean a replacement club.

Oh well, enough on golf rules for now?  My goodness, yes.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

In the last few weeks, I and many other Americans have seen huge contrasts between the Democrat and Republican candidates for vice president.

Usually, conventional wisdom is that VP candidates don’t necessarily tip the election scale either way.

However, they can play key roles, though not deciding roles.

And, this time, my wisdom – conventional or not — is that Democrat Tim Walz is far better than Republican J.D. Vance.  [There was even a report late last week that Trump was considering dumping Vance for another VP candidate.  Who knows?]

Washington Post columnist Matt Bai put it this way last week:

“You can see why Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz as her running mate, and why Democrats have fallen in love with him.  The guy delivers a stemwinder in the tradition of the great plains populists, full of passion and humor and plain-spoken defiance.

“But let me tell you something:  Nobody delivers a speech that good unless he’s got a clear intellectual argument behind it and a burning conviction that he’s right.  And that’s why the contrast between Walz and J.D. Vance might be the most interesting of the campaign.

“We’ve seen Donald Trump meander and contradict his way through endless stretches at a lectern.  You’ll soon see Harris capably work her way through an amalgamation of platitudes and applause lines.

“But in the contrasting rhetoric of Walz and Vance, in particular, we get a much sharper sense of what’s really being litigated in this election:  Two sharply contrasting views of what being America actually means.”

Rather than write more of my own stuff, let me continue by quoting more Bai:

“The most important passage in Vance’s convention speech last month was the one where he described the country as something physical, rather than an abstraction.  ‘America is not just an idea,’ Vance said.  ‘It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future.  It is in short, a nation.’

Literally speaking, this is not debatable; America exists, it is a nation and it has a history.

“But Vance isn’t being literal.  He is articulating the central idea that animates all forms of nationalism (including the white variety), as well as the Trump movement.  He is arguing that there is such thing as a common American culture, with its own language (English), its own religious ethos (Judeo-Christian) and its own concept of family (heterosexual, with naturally conceived children).

“Of course, there’s room for immigration and racial diversity in Vance’s worldview; his own wife is of Indian descent.  But in his view of America, the outsider becomes American by adopting a set of cultural norms — living here ‘on our terms,’ as he put it in his speech.  In this way, he sees America as no different, really, from France or Russia or any other country with common ethnic heritage.  The price of admission is cultural conformity.

“What Walz articulates — about as clearly as anyone has in the party since Barack Obama arrived on the scene 20 years ago — is a competing view that says, no, actually America is very much an idea.  Alone among nations, we have from the very start been a collection of immigrants and outsiders, bound together not by any common origin or culture, but rather by a common set of laws and values and institutions — what Abraham Lincoln called our “political religion.” (This is the liberal version of “American Exceptionalism” — the thing that makes us different from everyplace else.)

“In the America Walz described in his convention speech, it doesn’t matter what language you speak at home or what god (if any) you worship, or whether you have kids (naturally or otherwise).

“Because as long as you believe in the American promise of liberty and adhere to its laws, you’re just as American as anyone else, and anybody who doesn’t like it should ‘mind their own damn business.’

“Community, in Walz’s telling, isn’t defined by somebody’s idea of cultural norms, but rather by your connection to your neighbors.  If you’re willing to help out with a stranded car or a bake sale, then he doesn’t care if you’re an atheist or a cat-owner (or, God forbid, both).”

Bai adds this conclusion:

“In a campaign season that may already feel small and shallow, this is a very big disagreement, and I would argue that it’s more important than any one policy having to do with the price of groceries or the tax code.  It is an argument that will shape the way we govern ourselves for years to come — whether we conceive of American liberty as something that exists chiefly to protect White, Christian Americans from having their culture trampled, or whether we understand liberty to mean the freedom to choose whatever culture you like, as long as you respect the Constitution while you do it.”

I agree with Bai.  And that’s why Harris and Walz will get my vote.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

In politics these days, often a great quote gets more play than a complicated issue paper.

That’s the way it is.  For me, as a retired lobbyist, no problem, though I also hope credentialled issue papers get a look.

In the past, I remember a few great quotes such as when President John F. Kennedy uttered his famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Memorable.

Or, when military hero, the late Colin Powell, said he would not run for president because he “bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

So it was that in the recent Democrat National Convention, I heard such lines as these:

• Who’s going to tell him (Trump) that the job he is seeking is one of those Black jobs that he says always go to immigrants – From Michelle Obama

• She (Harris) understands that most of us will never be afforded the job of falling forward.  We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. – Again, from Michelle Obama

• Regarding Trump, there’s the childish nicknames.  The crazy conspiracy theories.   The weird obsession with crowd size.  From Barack Obama

• Take it from me, an actual billionaire – Trump is rich only in stupidity. – From J.B. Pritzker, Illinois governor

• I saw him after the cameras were off – Trump always mocked his supporters.  – From Stephanie Grisham, former Trump press secretary

• Of all the issues that seemingly preoccupy the mind of Trump — his perceived persecutions, the evil of his enemies, the size of the rallies — there is one that may be the most consistent:  Other people’s looks.  – Unknown.

• The next time you hear him, don’t count the lies. — count the I’s.  From Bill Clinton

• Trump is just like an old boyfriend who just won’t go away. – From House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

• So, there I was, a 40-something high school teacher with little kids, zero political experience and no money running in a deep red district. But you know what?  Never underestimate a public-school teacher. Never – From Vice President candidate Tim Walz

• We are a nation of patriots who serve when the mission is hard and who serve when the destination is uncertain – From Wes Moore, Maryland governor

• When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race or religion.  We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted.  No, we just try to do the best we can to save them.  And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out, too.  From Oprah Winfrey

And, then, this conclusion, a quote from Harris, says it all:  “My entire career, I have had only one client, the people.  Donald Trump has had only one client, himself.”

Just think how these quotes, especially the last one, will rankle Donald Trump as he wonders why a Black women may have his number.