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.

One characteristic of Donald Trump – his continual belittling of the U.S. military – strikes me as a reality that should prompt some of my friends to divorce themselves from supporting him.

How can persons who value military service – especially those who served themselves – tolerate someone who doesn’t value the military and, of course, managed to avoid serving himself.

For serving is something Trump never does, unless it is to serve himself.

Colbert King, writing in the Washington Post, made the same point in a recent column.

Here is how he started:

“Returning Trump to the White House would be a disservice not only to the armed services, but also to the nation.

“It might be a little late in the day, what with the Republican and Democrat conventions in the dust and the presidential campaigns well under way.  But I can’t get past Donald Trump’s contempt toward the military, even as he runs to become commander in chief once again.”

Here’s why, King writes:

• Maybe it’s because I wore the uniform of a commissioned U.S. Army officer, and proudly served two years on active duty.
• Maybe it’s because some of my Howard University classmates not only served gallantly in the armed forces, but did so in many cases at the cost of their lives.
• Maybe it’s because I think the 2.8 million U.S. military personnel stationed worldwide deserve a president who values their service.  But I believe returning Trump to the White House would be a disservice to the nation.

As a further rationale, King cited this recent incident.

“Yes, I was put off by his shallow and thoughtless remarks about the Medal of Honor and his disrespect of those who received it.  Trump stood before an audience at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey on August 15 and told those gathered that the Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest award you can get as a civilian, it’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version.

“It’s actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor — that’s soldiers.  They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”

If you heard this without attribution, you might bet it was Trump who said it, given his distaste for the military he wants to lead.

King then goes on to cite the one case that strikes me as the best indication of Trump’s hatred of the military.

“You might have been around during the Republican presidential campaign in 2015 when Trump opined on Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), a decorated Vietnam War veteran who paid a heavy, painful and physical price at the hands of North Vietnamese who held him captive for 5½ years.

“Trump declared that McCain was ‘not a war hero” and then clarified, ‘He’s not a war hero because he was captured.  I like people that weren’t captured.’  That from Trump, a loudmouth celebrity who never wore the uniform but avoided military service with draft deferments.”

I wore “the uniform,” too.  But not as well as did many of my friends who deserve the “thank you for your service” motto more than I do.

So, I say to my friends who herald Trump:  Consider his belittling of the military and don’t vote for him.

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.

I borrowed the headline on this blog from a column that ran a few weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal (WSG).

It was written by long-time Republican political strategist Karl Rove, now, among other pursuits, a WSJ columnist.

His piece did a very good job of this:  Putting to rest notions, which I have heard from several persons, that things are worse today than they ever have been.

Rove says “no” and then describes the reality.

Some of those who love to talk about how bad things are today hue to Donald Trump who is running for president on a “U.S. is terrible” platform, as is his vice president candidate, J.D. Vance.

It’s as if Trump is saying “things are bad today and only I, Donald Trump, can make them better if you make me king again.”

His denigration of America appears to have taken hold of some persons in this country, though I hope the “some persons” refers to those who already support Trump.

Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris, has a far sunnier disposition as she asks Americans to work hard to correct problems in what she calls “the greatest country in the world.”

Still, by citing excerpts of Rove’s column below, I am not saying that things are going swimmingly in America.  No.

We have real problems – immigration, tax policy, international relations in the face of wars, and many others – but we need solid officials on all sides of the political ledger to help solve them.

We don’t need naysayers.

So, here are excerpts from what Rove wrote:

• This is the subhead that led Rove’s column:  “U.S. politics today is ugly and broken, true enough. But the good news is that it was worse in the past, and it will get better again.”
• America is deeply divided.  Our politics is broken, marked by anger, contempt, and distrust.  We must acknowledge that reality but not lose historical perspective.  It’s bad now, but it’s been worse before — and not only during the Civil War.
• Let’s look backward and start with the mid-1960s to early ’70s.  The nation was bitterly divided over civil rights, the “sexual revolution,” and an increasingly unpopular war in Southeast Asia.
• The just and peaceful civil-rights protests of the 1950s and early ’60s were often met with state-sanctioned violence.  Then Harlem exploded in 1964, followed by a riot in Philadelphia.  Watts went up in flames in 1965; Chicago, Cleveland and San Francisco the next year.
• On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.  Riots broke out in more than 130 American cities, with 47 killed in the ensuing violence.  Two months later Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.
• That same year the nation’s most prominent segregationist, George Wallace, running for president as an independent, won five states in the Deep South.  In 1972, he came in third for the Democrat nomination, 1.8 points behind the winner in total primary vote.
• Beginning in 1965, the country was rocked by demonstrations over the Vietnam War, many of them student-led.  In some instances, governors sent in the National Guard to restore order.  After guardsmen killed four students in 1970 at Ohio’s Kent State, protests broke out on 350 campuses, involving an estimated two million people. Thirty-five thousand antiwar protesters assaulted the Pentagon in October 1967.
• An estimated 10,000 protestors tried shutting down the 1968 Democrat National Convention in Chicago.  Four years later, thousands tried the same at the GOP convention in Miami Beach.  The U.S. experienced more than 2,500 domestic bombings in 18 months in 1971-72.
• Two presidents were driven from office during this period.  Lyndon B. Johnson opted against seeking re-election in 1968 because of the war.  Richard Nixon, facing impeachment over Watergate, resigned in 1974.
• In the early 1930s, 1 in 4 Americans was unemployed.  Populism emerged on both ends of the spectrum.  On the left, Huey Long, proclaimed “every man a king,” threatened confiscation of wealth, and preached class hatred until he was assassinated in 1935.
• The Gilded Age is often overlooked as a time of division, but Republicans and Democrats hated each other. They were still fighting the Civil War by political means.  President Ulysses S. Grant’s 1872 re-election was followed by five consecutive presidential contests in which no winner received a popular-vote majority.  
• The most notorious of these Gilded Age elections was 1876.  Democrat Samuel Tilden led Republican Rutherford Hayes by 252,666 votes nationwide, but disputes about the Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina results were settled on March 2, 1877, by a special commission that awarded their electoral votes to Hayes. He was inaugurated two days later and, in return for a meaningless pledge by the South to protect black rights, he withdrew the remaining federal troops from the region.  The Electoral College count was 185-184.
• In the Gilded Age, it was routine for the House majority of either party to phony up a challenge to a member of the opposition who’d won by a few votes and toss him out, no matter how flimsy the evidence.  This happened 62 times between 1874 and 1904.  After winning re-election in 1882 by eight votes, Representative William McKinley of Ohio was expelled by the Democrat majority.
• There were bitter divisions and acrimony in the 1850s.  Remember the caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks in 1856?  It was condemned in the North and cheered in the South.
• Historian Joanne Freeman writes in “Field of Blood” that this violent period in the Capitol began in the 1830s and lasted for decades.  Senators and representatives routinely carried pistols, knives, clubs, brass knuckles, and other weapons onto the floor.  Political tensions ran high; insults and confrontations were routine and violence frequent. There was even death. In 1838, Whig Representative William Graves of Kentucky shot and killed Democrat Representative Jonathan Cilley of Maine in a duel over charges of corruption.
• These decades of animus followed America’s first claim of a stolen presidential election.  Andrew Jackson led in 1824’s four-way race with 41 per cent of the popular vote and carried 11 states, but with 99 electoral votes came up 33 short of a majority.  The contest went to the House, with each state’s delegation having one vote.

So, Rove asks, what ended these periods of broken politics?  

He answers:

“Convulsive events such as World War II played a role.  More important, adroit leadership — the kind we saw with Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan — clearly mattered.  They set a tone that led to healing.”

But most of the credit, Rove continues, “goes to the American people, who make mistakes but have always found their way back to true north.  They have often tolerated our country’s politics being angry, hyper-partisan and divisive; in some instances, they are the driving force behind polarization, with the political class reflecting the public’s unchecked passions.

“But that lasts only for a season. Their good common sense eventually brings them to vote for change, determined to reshape our politics in healthier, more constructive ways.”

And, Rove concludes:

“Polls show a clear majority of voters are unhappy with today’s politics and its ugly practices.  But don’t grow weary or discouraged.  It’s bad today, but it’s been worse before, and it will be better ahead.  Change is coming.  We don’t know precisely when, but it’s coming.  The better angels of our nature as Americans will emerge and win out.”

For my part, I hope Rove is right – that “better angels” will emerge. 

But what his column drives home to me is this:  Things may seem askew today, but they have been bad before, so it helps to maintain, (a) a sense of perspective, plus (b) a commitment to do each person’s part – my part — to contribute to improvement.

That commitment to personal action is one plank in Democrat Kamala Harris’ platform as she runs for president with a sunny disposition and a sense of joy.

I will take that over Trump’s darkness.  I hope other Americans will do the same.

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.

As I write this, I could comment instead about Day 3 of the Democrat National Convention in Chicago.

The party continued a rousing official start to make Donald Trump what he is, which is a loser.

Vice President Tim Walz introduced himself to the country in a speech illustrating what he has been before doing to Congress and leading Minnesota as its governor – a high school football coach.

Even as the convention prepares for an acceptance speech by Kamala Harris, we’ll begin to see whether the Democrat momentum can continue through to the election, now only about 75 days away.

Last night, my daughter, after watching Walz deliver his acceptance speech, said she wished he was at the top of the ticket.  That’s how well he did in inaugurating himself as a real, down-home American.

Back to the main point of this blog.

I suppose it could be said that “impersonation is the highest form of flattery.”

That would the only way to justify – if “justify” is the right word – what many Republicans are doing to take credit for developments in Washington, D.C. produced mainly by the other side, the Democrats.

Washington Post writer Catherine Rampell captured this very well this week when she wrote under this headline:  “The GOP’s greatest skill: Taking credit for things Democrats did; one party keeps lying about its public service record.  Talk about “stolen valor.”

Her use of the term “stolen valor” was a reference to the fact that some Republicans have been using that term to denigrate the military service of Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who left the military after 20+ years to run for Congress where he won.

For instance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance used the “stolen valor” term against Walz because he says Walz says he left the service before his unit was deployed overseas.

Note that Vance served, too, though was not exposed to combat.

So, on this point, I say to both – thank for your service and then getting about running for election in the right way.

Back to Rampell.

She jumped off the phrase “stolen valor” phrase to say this:  “But the actual perpetrators of ‘stolen valor’ in this election are Vance and his party — if not in the military context, then at least in the public service one. Republican politicians have repeatedly claimed credit for valiant actions they didn’t take, pro-family legislation they didn’t support and other popular policies they’re trying to repeal.”

Rampell provided these examples:

• For instance, as Democrats celebrated the Inflation Reduction Act’s two-year anniversary last week, Republicans, who unanimously voted against the law in 2022, condemned it and pledged to claw it back. (They’ve already voted a couple dozen times to repeal various portions of it.)

But when it comes to the projects the law subsidized, these same Republicans are big cheerleaders — both for the projects and their own (imagined) role in enabling them.

• This is hardly the only initiative Republican lawmakers have bogarted credit for despite their efforts to stop it.  Last fall, House Speaker Mike Johnson (Louisiana) cheered the expansion of Florida’s Sarasota airport, which he toured with Representative Vern Buchanan (R-Florida).

That project received at least $16 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. While some Republicans supported this law, both men voted against it.

• Similar examples abound for Republicans who voted against the Chips and Science Act.  Vance was not yet in the Senate when any of these blockbuster bills were enacted.  When he ran for office, though, he bashed the infrastructure law as “a total disaster for our country.”  He has since appeared to take credit for its funding for the Great Lakes as one of his top “accomplishments” in the Senate.

• More recently, Vance has spent the past month defending his “childless cat ladies” remarks by explaining he simply meant Republicans are more devoted to family-friendly policies than Democrats are.  Which family-friendly policies should Republicans be so proud of, you ask?  Oh, you know: the ones championed and passed by Democrats.

For instance, Vance often says he’s been fighting to expand the child tax credit. But earlier this month, when the Senate voted on a bill to do that, Vance couldn’t be bothered to show up.  His Republican colleagues blocked the bill from advancing.

• The other effort Vance has been citing as emblematic of his “pro-family” agenda:  Legislation to eliminate surprise, out-of-network medical bills.

“We got these ridiculous surprise medical billings from the hospital because we had chosen an out-of-network provider, of course, at this most stressful of all imaginable moments,” he recounted on ABC’s Face the Nation last week, when talking about the birth of his second child.  “I’ve actually introduced legislation to stop moms and dads from having to go through those surprise medical billings.”

Unable to find other legislation he sponsored on this issue, I contacted Vance’s Senate office to ask which bill he was referring to.  His spokesperson declined to speak on the record or give me the bill number for whatever legislation Vance was citing.

• To be fair, Vance has not stolen all the undue credit for himself. He’s also praised Trump for things Trump didn’t do. For instance, Vance credited Trump for a recent prisoner swap that, ahem, President Joe Biden negotiated.  And Trump himself is, of course, the master of laying claim to other presidents’ valorous and public-spirited achievements.

Back to the lead on this blog:  You know what they say — impersonation is the highest form of flattery.

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.

Washington Post writers performed a public service last week by preparing a story that appeared under the headline I used for this blog.

It went beneath the normal “race-horse” approach to detail some of the issues that may be involved in the presidential race match-up between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

The Post editors added this subhead:

“The candidates, their movements, and their rallies embody two very different identities, setting up a stark contrast for voters.”

You bet.

It would be hard to find a stronger contrast than Harris vs. Trump. 

• Harris focuses on the future of “our country.” 
• Trump focuses on the past. 
• Harris appeals to all segments of society. 
• Trump appeals to White males.

Further, as I write this, Democrats got a boost from Day 2 of the National Convention.  It was provided mostly by the Obamas, Barack and Michelle, as they accomplished two objectives:  (1) They endorsed Harris (one of the best lines is in the next paragraph, and (2) they skewered Trump.

The best line uttered by Michelle:  She wondered if Trump knew that what he called “the Black jobs” he said were going to immigrants could actually go to Harris as she took the Oval Office.

Standing ovations at the DNC.

Here is a quick excerpt from what the two writers, Hannah Knowles and Dylan Wells, prepared for the Post on the generational divide issue:

“Donald Trump walks onstage to the 1984 Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA,” cheered on by a roaring crowd that skews older and White.  “We will make America great again!” he promises.

“Kamala Harris walks out to Beyoncé’s 2016 hit “Freedom” and leans into internet memes — addressing more racially diverse audiences dotted with chartreuse shirts and pins that pay homage to a 2024 pop album called “Brat.”

More from the Post:

“The split screen reflects two presidential campaigns that embody two very different cultural, generational and social identities, setting up a stark contrast for voters.  

“The divide is clearer than ever since President Joe Biden quit the race — upending a campaign that had long featured two White men born in the 1940s and allowing a younger, multi-racial woman to take his place.

“Now the candidates, their rallies and their movements are showcasing two sides of America split by demographics and cultural touchstones, not just party and policy.

“Trump’s grievance-fueled movement is full of nostalgia for past generations and his own term in office — and fear and anger about how undocumented immigration and secularization are changing the country, interviews with many supporters show.”

A quick summary:

• At rallies, Trump offers apocalyptic warnings about the southern border, promises to crack down on ‘transgender insanity,’ re-litigates his 2020 election loss, belittles his critics, and vows retribution on his perceived enemies, making many false and baseless claims in his lengthy speeches.
• Harris, meanwhile, is drawing new energy from young voters and people of color who say they worry that Trump will take America backward to a place where women, people of color, LGBTQ+ Americans and others face more challenges.  She delivers tightly scripted speeches that prompt her crowds to boo at Trump, but that also strike sunny tones, such as pointing toward ‘the future.’

One pollster, Celinda Lake, told the Post that, “Now, people clearly see Harris as change — demographically, stylistically, culturally, age, gender, just in every way.”

Trump, meanwhile, is seeking to brand Harris as more of the same from Biden and trying to convince voters they were better off during his time in the White House.

More from the Post:  “The divides between the two candidates’ supporters reflect long-standing differences in race, geography, religion, education and more. Republicans’ support base in the Trump era skews White, working-class, male, rural and evangelical.  Democrats’ support skews college-educated and urban and draws more on women, young people and voters of color, especially Black Americans.  Political analysts have talked for years about Republican-leaning “Cracker Barrel voters” versus Democratic-leaning “Whole Foods voters.”

Regarding Harris:

“Now Trump, 78, and Harris, 59, personify the contrast in striking ways.

“Harris was born in the 1960s on the cusp of Gen X, and her campaign has leaned into the jokes and references of Gen Z. When singer Charli XCX declared the day that Biden dropped out that “ kamala ISbrat” — delighting TikTok users and baffling the older and less-online — Harris’s team immediately embraced the term, which has come to mean something like messy but bold.  The campaign began to use the font and Shrek green of Charli XCX’s album cover.

Regarding Trump:

Trump supporters queue early up for his events in shirts like “God, Guns and Trump” and “Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President.” Some camp out all day with folding chairs. As they finally filter inside, the speakers blast classics such as “Rocket Man” (1972), “I Will Survive” (1978), “Dancing Queen” (1976) and “Memory” from the musical “Cats” (1981).

As they wait for the main show, there are teaser videos of Trump (“We will expel the warmongers!”), patriotic rituals and dire warnings about where the country is headed if Trump is not elected.  There’s always a Christian prayer.

Which, I add, is duplicitous because Trump doesn’t appear to know a thing about real Christians.

So, as this campaign plays out for the next 75 days or so, watch for the contrasts between the two – generational contrasts.

And, as two old people, my wife and I, choose Harris, we are hoping others will join.

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 you need another reason to question the sanity of Donald Trump as he runs for president, consider this.

He is saluting Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal in the film, Silence of the Lambs. 

Trump invokes Lecter as a “great man.” He probably the movie’s Lecter thinks is a real figure, one to be modeled.

Need any more to question and oppose Trump?

I don’t!

I’ll just add this to an already long list. 

But I did find another word this morning that describes Trump to a T:  Supercilious. 

It means this:  “Behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others.”

That’s 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.

I wrote this headline after returning from church yesterday where we heard members of the Salem Refugee Community sing about God in various languages, often their own.

Their participation illustrated a couple things:

• God is THE GOD of all people, not just those who happen to live in America or who look like us.

• Salem Alliance Church, the church we have attended in Salem, Oregon, for more than 30 years, has led an effort to welcome refugees to this country – and, of all places, these solid citizens live, figuratively at least, right next door to us in the Salem-Keizer area.

A third point is that what we saw at our church this morning creates a very different picture than some citizens propound, which is that immigration is evil and threatens our way of life.

Of course, the leader of that anti-immigrant message is one Donald Trump who wants to be president again.  But, this blog is not about Trump.

It is about the REAL PEOPLE whom we call immigrants or refugees.

All of us need to welcome to America just as our forebears were welcomed in the past.

It was awe-inspiring to see and hear the refugees sing about God in their own languages – Swahili, French, Sango, Arabic, Spanish – as well as, for us, English.

It showed, to make my point again, that God is THE GOD OF ALL PEOPLE, not just those who look and act like us.

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.

Migrants and the crimes they allegedly commit have been a hallmark of Donald Trump’s political campaigns.

By this, he tries to appeal to White folks who believe migrants are the source of their problems.

Is it true?

No.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, German Lopez summarized things this way:

“Republicans suggest that immigrants are especially likely to be criminals.  The data shows the opposite.”

Lopez went on:

“Throughout the first three days of the Republican National Convention, officials highlighted a surge in what they call ‘migrant crime.’  President Biden has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists, and the price that we have paid has been deadly,’ according to Texas Governor Greg Abbot.  (And, I add, Abbot always is a flame thrower; facts don’t matter.)

“The day before, Senator Ted Cruz, also from Texas said, ‘Every day, Americans are dying in crimes committed by migrants.’”

The fact is, Lopez wrote, that there is no migrant crime surge.

“In U.S., rates of crime and immigration have moved in opposite directions in recent years.  After illegal immigration plummeted in 2020, the murder rate rose.  And after illegal immigration spiked in 2021 and 2022, murders plateaued and then fell.

“Over a longer period, there is no relationship between immigration and crime trends.  The number of foreign-born Americans has increased for decades, while the murder rate has gone up and down at different times.”

Of course, Lopez adds, some migrants have committed violent crimes.

“There are more than 45 million immigrants in the U.S., and invariably some of them — just like people of any other group — will do bad things. Similarly, thousands of native-born Americans commit violent crimes in any given week.”

As for the migrant issue in general, I have written about it previously to make three points:

• Migrants are individuals – real people – hoping for a better life in America.  They are real people.
• All of us who live here in the United States have descended in some way from migrants.
• There is no excuse for policymakers in this country – both Republicans and Democrats – for not solving the illegal immigrant problem.  Tough, but possible.
• The last time around, when a solution was moving through Congress, Trump came out vehemently against the solution because, guess what – he would rather run against migrants than solve the problem.

For his part, Lopez, the writer, summarizes the status this way:

“But more immigration has not caused more crime.  The myth that crime is up can perpetuate stereotypes and racism.  Immigrants who arrived in New York recently told The Times that local residents were often hostile.  They make rude comments under their breath or move away in subway cars.  One Venezuelan lamented that people now saw all migrants in the same way: ‘violent.’

That is just not true.  So, as always, as we focus on the upcoming presidential election, it is important to separate fact from fiction.

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.

Incredibly, the other day the New York Times included a story on this “major” political issue – the use of apostrophes.

Yes, the use of apostrophes!

It is an issue that occupies the minds of some folks in this country who focus on grammar and the proper use of punctuation marks.

As a writer for the New York Times put it:  “With Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on the Democrat presidential political tickets, these apostrophe buffs were doing head spins.”

The story appeared under this headline:

“Is It Harris’ or Harris’s?  Add a Walz, and It’s Even Trickier.”

With wars and rumors of wars on every hand, not to mention a divisive presidential campaign in the United States, apostrophes, for more people, don’t make the list of important issues.

For the grammar geeks, they do.

So, the question is where are voters and journalists supposed to place the possessive squiggle?

The options:

• Harris’
• Harris’s
• Walz’
• Walz’s

More from the NY Times:

“It all felt a bit like apostrophe hell:  Would it be Ms. Harris’s and Mr. Walz’s or Ms. Harris’ and Mr. Walz’s?  The Harrises and the Walzes?  The Harrises’ family home and the Walzes’ family dog?  It was enough to see double, made worse by the fact that stylebooks, large news organizations, and grammar geeks were all split or contradicted one another.

“’Anyone who tells you there are universal rules to how to add an apostrophe ending in S is either wrong or lying,’ Jeffrey Barg, a grammar columnist, said.  ‘You can’t be wrong as long as you’re consistent.’”

“The Associated Press Stylebook, widely considered to be the gold standard among news organizations, is clear on its rule for the possessive of singular proper names ending in ‘s’ — only an apostrophe is needed (Harris’), though there are always exceptions.  The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal all do the opposite, opting for ’s to mark a singular possessive and a simple apostrophe for plural possessive (Harrises’ and Walzes’).”

Now, with all that, I add:  Who cares?

There actually is a person who does — Bob McCalden, who leads the Apostrophe Protection Society in the United Kingdom.  Who knew there was such a group?

According to the NY Times, McCalden says this:

“’The challenge I would put to anyone that said, no, the possessive of Harris is just with an apostrophe, is how do you say that?  By using only an apostrophe and not including an extra S, the name doesn’t flow properly.’”

Plus, the discourse comes at a pivotal time for apostrophes:  Thursday, August 15, is International Apostrophe Day.

So, mark your calendar!

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 Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, one of five departments I run as director, is open again.

Which enables me to reprint recent comments from three columnists who write for the New York Times.  And they write well.

Together, writing separately, they skewer Donald Trump who deserves to be skewered for his lack of any redeeming value, even as he runs for president again.

Here’s a summary of the three:

FROM FRANK BRUNI IN THE NEW YORK TIMES:  The size of the crowd at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Atlanta last month rivaled the turnout for Donald Trump days later only “because she had entertainers,” Trump told the audience at his event, referring to the rappers Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion.  “I don’t need entertainers.”

Translation:  Harris cheated.  Even so, she didn’t get the better of him.

She isn’t really Black but “happened to turn Black” over the course of her political career.  That’s what Trump said at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, insinuating that Harris had performed a melanin metamorphosis and was falsely improvising identities to contrive some perk unavailable to him.

Poor Trump.  Always forced to compete on an uneven playing field.

FROM EZRA KLEIN IN THE NY TIMES:  Kamala Harris has a very different theory of this election than Joe Biden did.

In 2020, and then again in 2024, Biden ceded the battle for attention to Donald Trump. Whether as a matter of strategy or, as a result of Biden’s own limitations, Biden adopted a low-key campaigning style, letting Trump dominate news cycle after news cycle.  Trump wanted the election to be about Donald Trump, and Joe Biden wanted the election to be about Donald Trump.  On that much, they agreed.

In 2020, when Trump was the unpopular incumbent, that strategy worked for Biden.  In 2024, when Biden was the unpopular incumbent, it was failing him.  It was failing in part because Biden no longer had the communication skills to foreground Trump’s sins and malignancies.

It was failing in part because some voters had grown nostalgic for the Trump-era economy.  It was failing in part because Biden’s age and stumbles kept turning attention back to Biden and his fitness for office, rather than keeping it on Trump and Trump’s fitness for office.

Then came the debate, and Biden’s decision to step aside, and Harris’s ascent as the Democratic nominee.  

Harris has been able to do what Biden could or would not: fight — and win — the battle for attention.  She had help, to be sure.  On-line meme-makers who found viral gold in an anecdote about coconuts.  Charli XCX’s “kamala IS brat.”

But much of it is strategy and talent.  Harris holds the camera like no politician since Barack Obama.

FROM MAUREEN DOWD IN THE NY TIMES:  From the first time I went on an exploratory political trip with Trump in 1999, he has measured his worth in numbers.  His is not an examined life but a quantified life.

When I asked him why he thought he could run for president, he cited his ratings on “Larry King Live.”  He was at his most animated reeling off his ratings, like Faye Dunaway in “Network,” reciting how well her shows were doing.

He pronounced himself better than other candidates because of numbers:  The number of men who desired his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss; the number of zoning changes he had maneuvered to get; the number of stories he stacked on his building near the U.N.; the number of times he was mentioned in a Palm Beach newspaper.

By his mode of valuation, if his numbers aren’t better than his rivals, he’s worthless.

That’s why Trump is always obsessing on his crowd numbers and accusing the press of lowballing head counts.

And that’s why he couldn’t admit he lost the election.  If Joe Biden put more numbers on the board, Trump was worthless.  The master huckster’s whole identity revolves around having higher numbers, even if they’re fake.  (He always pretended his skyscrapers had more stories than they did.)

*********

There.  Three columnists rate Trump and, by my measure, give him failing grades. 

Of course, as the epitome of the narcissist, he hates being rated or coming in second. 

But that’s where he belongs and, I hope, will stay there in the coming election.

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.

This is one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit because, you see, I am a management guru.

The other departments are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of “Just Saying,” the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, and the Department of Words Matter.

So, Inquiring Minds want to know:

IN SOCCER:  Why so many players fall to the ground, either on their own or when they run into another player, then lay on the ground writing in seeming pain and clutching a leg?

Of course, sometimes the pain is real in a game that is played on the run.  And, if that is so, call the medical staff. 

But, at other times, it appears the players are just grasping for air or taking a sort-of timeout.

I saw this on numerous occasions as I watched the Paris Olympics, which just ended Sunday.

IN DRIVING 16-WHEEL TRUCKS:  Why do so many trucks stop on the side of the roads leading out of rest-areas on major highways?

As I travel north and south on I-5 in Oregon and California, I see this all the time.

Why?

Perhaps someone smarter than me – is there anybody? – will fill me in.

IN GOLF:  Why don’t rules officials call more slow-play penalties on professional golfers?

Most players – not all, but most – exceed the allotted time to play their next shhot, which is 40 seconds after they arrive at their golf ball, with a 10-second add-on when there is something unusual about the next shot…say the golfer is close to a tree, etc.

The professional game often takes longer than five hours to play 18 holes.  Yes, five hours!

It shouldn’t take that long, no matter how much money rides on each stroke.  But, until rules officials begin to issue warnings or penalties, nothing will change.

I have written about this before and my suggestion is that golf adopt a shot clock.  It can be done by having a golf cart, with a shot clock on the back, follow every group, then use the clock to measure times.  It happened once in what came to be called “The Shot Clock Masters” in Europe.

With the shot clock, one violation gets a warning.  And, then, further violations either cost stroke penalties, or in the most extreme cases, disqualification.

Good idea.  Pro golf in the United States should try it.