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 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 age of a presidential candidate – Joe Biden – became a major issue again this week.

But, for me, I put it this way:  Both candidates running, Biden and Donald Trump, are old.  And, does age disqualify them automatically?  No.

But, age does raise questions about whether either candidate is up to the nation’s top political job.

However, let me get to the bottom line quickly for me, then engage in more discussion.  If Biden and Trump are the nominees, I will vote for Biden.

The main reason is that Trump is unfit for any political office, given his deranged proclivity for lying incessantly, not to mention breaking various laws so he is under court indictments.

The age issue arose because a special counsel was investigating the fact that Biden had some classified documents in his personal home and garage.  Biden did not dispute the contention, but went beyond his assignment, characterize Biden for not remembering “stuff.”

That prompted New York Times reporter, Paul Krugman, to write this:

“When the news broke about the special counsel’s hit job — his snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden’s memory — I found myself thinking about my mother.  

‘What year did she die?  It turned out that I didn’t know offhand; I knew that it was after I moved from Princeton to CUNY, because I was regularly commuting out to New Jersey to see her, but before the pandemic.  I actually had to look into my records to confirm that she died in 2017.

“I’ll bet that many readers are similarly vague about the dates of major life events.  You remember the circumstances, but not necessarily the precise year.  And whatever you think of me, I’m pretty sure I don’t write or sound like an old man.  The idea that Biden’s difficulty in pinning down the year of his son’s death shows his incapacity — in the middle of the Gaza crisis! — is disgusting.”

Krugman also reported that he had an hour-long off-the-record meeting with Biden in August, and while he couldn’t talk about the content, he said Biden was “perfectly lucid, with a good grasp of events.”

 Krugman also gets the right to the point.

“And my God, consider Biden’s opponent.  When I listen to Donald Trump’s speeches, I find myself thinking about my father, who died in 2013 (something else I had to look up).  During his last year, my father suffered from sundowning: he was lucid during the day, but would sometimes become incoherent and aggressive after dark.

“If we’re going to be doing amateur psychological diagnoses of elderly politicians, shouldn’t we be talking about a candidate who has confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi, and whose ranting and raving sometimes reminds me of my late father on a bad evening?”

There, Krugman said it. 

Trump is worse than Biden and I hope voters render that verdict later this year.

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 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.

Most of us involved in management of anything – for me, a lobbying and public relations firm for 25 years – have heard about the value of listening.

But, to put a point on it, many of us still fall victim to the tendency to talk first and listen later.

I remember the way a former business partner of mine put it to emphasize the point:  God gave you two ears and one mouth, so spend twice as much time listening as talking.

Writing in the New York Times, veteran reporter (see below), Thomas L. Friedman, made the same point this way:

“One of my writing techniques has always been to employ metaphors to explain complex issues.  In a blog post last week, I explained the behavior of the United States, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others by arguing that the way they operate in certain situations mirrors that of particular species.

“Some readers from the region and elsewhere found it illuminating and told me so.  Other readers, including respected colleagues, didn’t, and told me that any use of animal or insect species to describe people or discuss the highly charged issue of the Israeli-Hamas war is dehumanizing and unhelpful.  They cited instances in which such analogies have been used as racist tropes.”

“My goal, ”Friedman adds, “is always to provide insight into this area of the world and its peoples, whom I care deeply about.  And that means always listening to the criticism, as well as the praise.”

Covering the Middle East for almost 45 years, Friedman says “the most useful lesson was to try to be a good listener.”

“Because two things happen when I listen:  One is that I learn when I listen.  But much more important is what you say when you listen.  That’s because listening is a sign of respect.

“I found over the years that it was amazing what people would let me say to them, write about them or ask them about — if they thought that I respected them.  And if they thought that I didn’t respect them, I could not tell them the sky was blue.  And the way they perceived respect, first and foremost, was if you listened — not just waited for them to stop talking — but deep listening.”

I can mimic Friedman based on my years in the lobbying business.

On my rounds every day at the Capitol in Salem, Oregon, or around Oregon between legislative sessions, I tried to emphasize listening.  And, like Friedman, I always learned something by using my two ears more than my one mouth.  And, listening enabled me to achieve results for clients.

So, in business or in everyday life, practice this skill – listening.  It will pay off.

**********

As for Friedman, he became the New York Times foreign affairs opinion columnist in 1995.  He joined the newspaper in 1981, after which he served as the Beirut bureau chief in 1982, Jerusalem bureau chief in 1984, in Washington as the diplomatic correspondent in 1989, and later served as the White House correspondent, and economic correspondent.  His experience serves to underscore the value of listening.

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 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 professional golf tour made headlines last week when it announced a major financial deal with a group called “Strategic Sports Group (SSG).

The tour is getting a $3 billion investment from SSG, but, in the days after the deal was announced, there were more questions than answers.

Such questions as these:

• How would the investors get a return on their investment, assuming that the business leaders would want a return?  No one knows yet.

• How would the PGA Tour players benefit?  No one knows, except that one report said the deal “would give players access to more than $1.5 billion as equity owners in the new PGA Tour Enterprises.”

• How would the deal affect negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, or would the deal affect those negotiations at all?

• And, who is SSG?  Well, here there is answer on this question.  It is made up of the owners of, among others, the Boston Red Sox (Fenway Sports Group led by John Henry), Atlanta Falcons (Arthur Blank), Boston Celtics (Wyc Grousbeck), Milwaukee Bucks (Mark Attanasio), and New York Mets (Steven Cohen).

Apart from the looming questions, one of my favorite on-line golf magazines, Global Golf Post (GGP), went on record to call the infusion of money, a “monumental deal.”

Early in the story, from Pebble Beach, GGP writer Ron Green, Jr., put it this way:

“PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA | Wind-whipped but smiling after a Wednesday practice round at Pebble Beach, Adam Scott walked off the famous 18th green as a sea spray carried on the gusts.

“As a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, Scott has been integrally involved in the negotiations that led to the announcement of the tour’s transformational multibillion-dollar partnership with Strategic Sports Group, almost instantly reshaping the tour’s future.

“’I don’t know what chapter this is for the PGA Tour, but it has certainly become a new chapter in the tour taking on an investor, an incredible investor group at that.  This is a partnership that takes professional golf into the future.  It’s excitement.”

GGP wrote that, while there are many details still to be clarified, the essence of the deal is this:

• Strategic Sports Group is making an initial investment of $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, with another $1.5 billion potentially coming.  The group, led by Fenway Sports Group, also will take an active role in plotting strategy for the tour on and off the course.
• The Policy Board, which includes PGA Players Scott, Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods, Webb Simpson, Patrick Cantlay, and Peter Malnati, voted unanimously in favor of the deal.
• The initial investment will go toward giving approximately 200 players an equity share in PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit entity that is being created to sit over the PGA Tour. The player grants will be based on several factors, including performance, and will be vested over time.  It’s a way of rewarding players who turned down lucrative offers from LIV Golf as well as others, including future players.

So this shows that, for golf, as well as most other sports, money rules.  Look only so far as the Super Bowl in a couple days.  Seats at the event cost thousands of dollars.  And, there are no more parking at airports near Las Vegas because of all the private planes that already have booked spots.  [Which, by the way, will make it tough for Taylor Swift’s plane to find a place to park – and, speaking of a lot of money, consider that!]

Still, the questions persist about the SSG investment in pro golf.  And those of us who have the questions would like answers.  But, in this as in playing golf in general, patience matters.

So, I, for one will try to be patient to see how all this evolves.

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 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.

Atlantic Magazine staff writer Tom Nichols puts it very well again:

“Now, anyone who has ever worked in politics knows that sometimes good bills die for stupid and cheap partisan reasons.  The House GOP’s obstruction, however, is beyond partisanship.

“Republicans are threatening to harm the country and endanger our allies merely to help Trump’s re-election chances, obeying a man under multiple indictments and whose track record as a party leader has been one of unbroken losses and humiliation.

“Trump, of course, cares nothing for national policy.  He has also clearly abandoned any pretenses about democracy, a position that might seem less than ideal heading into a general election, which is likely why Trump’s campaign has tried to ridicule concerns about its candidate’s commitment to the Constitution.

“But the former president’s footmen can’t help themselves, and they continue to trumpet their hopes for a dictatorship.”  

Nothing more need to be said to heap discredit on Trump and his minions.

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 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 lack of balance continues to irritate me:  Politics versus policy.

Most of those who represent us – either in a state such as Oregon where I live or in Washington, D.C. – don’t have a sense of balance between the two.

By definition, neither bad.  But, when balance is lost, politics becomes the name of every game and policy gets lost in the shuffle.

Put another way:  Most of those who represent us are always campaigning – engaging in election politics — and never governing.

Call it the permanent campaign.

It tends to mean never getting anything done, especially in the middle-ground, which is where the best solutions lie.

So, what is the permanent campaign?

The term was first coined by Sidney Blumenthal in his 1980 book by the same name.  In it, he explained how the breakdown in political parties forced politicians to govern in different ways.

Blumenthal contended that politicians increasingly used political consultants to help them monitor their job approval numbers and media exposure, even when not on the campaign trail.  This means those in office are always in campaign mode, even when they are supposed to be in office “governing.”

The theory of the permanent campaign is also credited to political strategist Patrick Caddell who wrote a memo for President-Elect Jimmy Carter just after Carter’s election in 1976 in which Caddell asserted:  “Governing with public approval requires a continuing political campaign.”

In the U.S. House, those who win election serve only for two years, so, as soon as they win, the next campaign starts.  The same is true in the Oregon House of Representatives.

Instead of “legislating” — deciding on useful additions to U.S. law — the 435 members of the U.S. House and the 60 members of the Oregon House — start campaigning immediately, often with a negative twist compounded by irritating TV ads.

Essayist Joseph Epstein, in a piece for the Wall Street Journal, added to my thinking as he wrote a few years ago about the last mid-term election.  His column carried this subhead:  “A dispiriting mid-term cycle has only just finished and the 2024 presidential race has already started.”

Here is how his column started:

“Has there ever been an election so relentlessly dreary as the one we have just been through?  The day after Election Day a cable-show panelist remarked that ‘there are only 727 days until the next election.’  He laughed. I didn’t.

“I’m suffering from political exhaustion.  I’m bored and saddened, satiated with talk of electoral politics.  In some places, it took nearly three weeks to count the votes.  I’ve seen more polls than Poland has Poles.  And most of those polls turned out to be wrong.”

Epstein concluded:

“How much better things would be if time — eight or nine months, say —were set aside to knock off all the blather, kick back and chill.  But it is not to be.  Perhaps it never will be again, and the country will henceforth live in a permanent state of electoral frenzy:  A state of claim and counter-claim, insults delivered and returned, hyperbole everywhere, agitation reigning generally.”

With Epstein, I do not hold out much hope for change.

Wall Street Journal’s William Galston put it this way:

“Campaigning is one thing, governing another.  Opposing is not the same as legislating.”

He is right.  And right even as we endure the relentless, permanent campaign.

And this footnote to illustrate a current issue where policy loses over politics:

“The Republican Party should take yes for an answer.  By torpedoing the Senate’s bi-partisan immigration deal, under pressure from former president Donald Trump to preserve his election-year advantage on a wedge issue, congressional Republicans would blow an opportunity to reduce undocumented immigration and curtail mass crossings at the southern border — along with saving Ukraine before it runs out of ammunition.

“The 370-page legislative text released Sunday night, promptly declared ‘dead on arrival’ in the House by Speaker Mike Johnson, emerged from months of substantive discussions and careful compromises by all sides.”

So, I say consider the immigration compromise merits and lay politics aside.

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 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 borrow this blog headline from one that ran in the Washington Post the other day.

It captures very well the status of the border immigration issue in Washington, D.C.

To Republicans, the southern border once was a crisis.  Now, to accede to Donald Trump’s inane wishes, the crisis no longer exists.

Trump’s wishes?

He wants the border to be an election issue for him.  If Congress does nothing, then he and his minions can blame President Joe Biden and, thus, they feel, win votes in the election.

So it was that Post Dana Milbank wrote about the status this way:

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“When House Speaker Mike Johnson invited President Biden to give his State of the Union address on the unusually late date of March 7, people were puzzled.

“Now, the mystery can be revealed.  House Republicans delayed the State of the Union so they could use the time to foment a state of disunion.

“After the Supreme Court last month sided with the Biden Administration in a dispute with Texas over border barriers, Texas Representative Chip Roy asserted that the high court’s order ‘is unconscionable and Texas should ignore it.’

“Never mind that two conservative justices joined in the order.  Roy suggested that an appropriate response would be to ’ell the court to go to hell.’”

Milbank then summarizes things this way:

“It’s not just words.  These dime-store confederates are actively sabotaging the government they serve — by blocking it from mounting an effective response to the historic surge of migrants along the southern border.

“Back in October, Biden requested $13.6 billion in emergency funding for border protection, including the hiring of 1,300 additional Border Patrol agents and 1,600 asylum officers, as well as more funds to counter fentanyl smuggling.  Because of Republicans’ objections, Congress still hasn’t approved a penny of it.

“And now, even as House Republicans wail about a ‘crisis’ and an ‘invasion’ at the border, they are mobilizing to kill a bi-partisan deal emerging in the Senate to reform asylum claims and to beef up border security — regarded as the toughest immigration legislation in decades.”

All of this underlines an unfortunate fact in Congress.  Representatives in the House are always running for re-election.  Seldom are they governing. 

To some observers, this has been called the “permanent campaign.”

More Milbank:

“Instead of declaring victory and embracing the legislation they have long demanded, House Republicans are moving to impeach the Administration’s lead negotiator on the proposal — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — on charges so flimsy they do not identify a crime of any kind.

“But this is the new standard.  The hysteria about a crisis along the border is matched only by a determination to do nothing about it.  Rather than solve the problem, they prefer to have an issue for the 2024 campaign.”

Note the phrase:  Rather than solve the problem, make it a campaign issue.

That approach by Republicans in the U.S. House strikes me as unconscionable.  They deserve to be repudiated for their inaction on such a pressing issue.

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 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.

Higher education as we know it in America has been under threat and, no surprise, not always to the benefit of its reputation.  On occasion, it also has been its own worst enemy.

Some of the recent discord is not deserved if it is in relation to the appearance in Congress by three higher ed presidents – one from MIT, one from the University of Pennsylvania, and one from Harvard.  They answered questions about anti-semitism and free speech on campus. and MIT

What happened is that the three got trapped by a disreputable member of the U.S. House, Republican Elise Stefanik, who got what no doubt she wanted in the first place, which was more publicity for herself as she appears to be vying to win Donald Trump’s nod as a vice presidential candidate.

The three college presidents, two of whom lost their jobs as a result of the appearance in Congress, should have answered the questions simply and clearly – they should have said they don’t and won’t tolerate anti-semitism or any form of discrimination on their campuses. 

Instead, they failed, either because they brought a complicated academic perspective to the question or because their staffs had failed to prepare them adequately for their time in the limelight.

[As an aside, I highlight the role of staff because that was what I did in several of my public relations positions before retirement.  Therefore, my bias is that staff advice matters, though it is up to the principal about whether to take it.  Who knows what happened in this case, but one source told me that a couple law firms had been asked to provide advice and did so.  Not sure about the content of the advice or whether it was taken.]

What remains after the appearance in Congress is that higher education needs to get about the business of reforming itself to illustrate that it doesn’t tolerate any discrimination against any group of people, as well as values free speech – within appropriate limits – as a key part of learning.

I also would say it also needs to get about its core business, which ought to be education, not politics.

So it was that I read a story in the Wall Street Journal by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute and research fellows at the University of Texas’ Civitas Institute.

It appeared under the headline I borrowed for this blog, as well as a subhead, both of which appear below:

FOLLOW THE LEFT’S EXAMPLE TO REFORM HIGHER ED:  Identify areas, like civics, that are inadequately studied and create new programs around them.

Here is how the two authors started their piece:

“Conservatives have an extraordinary opportunity to reform higher education.  Universities face a perfect storm of falling enrollments, souring public opinion, and political scrutiny.  They need friends.

“Prudent administrators should be eager to work with those whose opinions they might not always agree with.”

In my words, the call is to find the smart middle ground.

The two authors continue:

“The left’s most enduring victories on campus have been led by academics who think academically.  The right should learn from their playbook.

“When the academic left seeks to innovate, they do what scholars have always done:  They create new disciplines.  Academics who thought women’s lives and perspectives were neglected created women’s studies.  Those who saw that scholars overlooked the literature, history, and art of black Americans created African-American studies.”

This, the Storey’s write, is a legitimate tactic.

“It’s how universities work.  Academics perceive that some phenomenon is overlooked by existing modes of inquiry.  They write studies about it; they describe ways of examining it.  They attract scholars in related subjects, who become the initial faculty of the new programs.  They develop ways of thinking that cohere as a discipline, in which students can be trained.  They create associations; journals spring up; grants get funded; students get degrees.  One generation of faculty acts as mentors to the next.”

Part of me, based on my lobbying background, including on occasion for higher education institutions, wonders about the tendency to create something new to debate something old.

It’s usually how governments work.  If agencies don’t like what’s happening, they create a new department or sub-department.  Don’t fix what’s broken.  Create something new.

If I was involved in this kind of higher education reform, I also would want to make sure we were not creating some kind of new political organization.  I would want something new to focus on learning, not politics.

For higher education in general, the Storeys go on to report that the most promising academic innovations today are Republican-led efforts at public universities to remedy a deficit in university-level civic education.

Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, or SCETL, is the model.  SCETL now employs 20 faculty, teaches more than 1,000 students annually, and has bipartisan support.  Its success has encouraged similar efforts in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah, North Carolina, and Ohio.

“Each such school is distinctive.  What links them is the mission of creating a new model of university-level civic education. We call this model Civic Thought.  The elements of Civic Thought are derived from the intellectual demands of American citizenship, which requires the ability to deliberate about everything from war to education.  Equipping the mind for such responsibility is an ambitious intellectual project, fully worthy of the university.”

For me, this emphasis on civics calls to mind an effort in which I participated on a committee appointed by Oregon Common Cause.

Broadly, the idea was that “ethics” was important for all those in public life, even though we also knew it would be difficult to inject ethical attitudes and behavior into politics when all sides otherwise were so pitted against each other, ethics be damned.

Beyond ethics in general, one idea we pursued — inject a new civics curriculum into Oregon high schools in the belief that doing so would help young people understand more about their government, as well as expect government to act in an ethical fashion.

We started small rather than set out to impose a statewide mandate.

We identified a couple high schools – one in Bend and another in Portland – that we thought could develop model civics education programs.  We talked with those two schools and leaders said they were ready to experiment.  If those models worked, then they could be mimicked by other schools.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, our effort failed, at least in part because the Covid pandemic made it difficult for schools to respond to a new civics curriculum idea or, for that matter, the Oregon Legislature to respond to other statewide proposals.

Still, I remain committed to the idea that young people in America should understand more about “their government” and how it works.  That way, they’d be better citizens when it came time to vote.  And ethical attitudes and behavior would benefit.

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 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.

Two writers in the Wall Street Journal today – former Republican analyst Karl Rove and retired Wall Street editor Daniel Henninger – confirmed for me what I thought was the case already:  Today’s politics is worse than ever, especially in Washington, D.C.

What is happening again doesn’t provide much hope for democracy in America.

FIRST ROVE:  He wrote under this headline and subhead – “Biden’s 2024 Campaign Is Worse Than Churchill’s Pudding; Trump is beatable, but the president’s campaign has no persuasive theme.

Here is how he started his column:

“That Biden trails Trump in the RealClearPolitics average, 43.9 per cent to 47.8 per cent, suggests the presumptive Democrat nominee has significant challenges.  In the 18 polls conducted this year, Biden has led in only two and tied in three.  So where to begin?

“Winston Churchill reportedly once rejected an indifferent dessert, saying: ‘Take away this pudding! It has no theme.’

“Biden’s campaign is worse than Churchill’s pudding.  He not only lacks an effective, simple story line about who he is and what this contest is about; his attempts so far to draw one have only muddled things further.”

Rove also avers that it is not enough for Biden just to run against Trump.

“…railing about Trump’s traversing of norms doesn’t energize Biden voters, many of whom remain generally lethargic.  The president would have more success focusing on specific matters that independents and swayable Republicans care about.  For one, Trump promises to pardon those now imprisoned for offenses, including violent ones, related to the January. 6, 2021, riots.  That’s unacceptable to most Americans.  He keeps claiming he won the 2020 election.  While most Republicans believe that, nearly a third disagree, as do most independents.”

SECOND HENNINGER:  He wrote under this headline and subhead:  “The Republicans’ Border Crisis; The GOP is branding itself as addicted to rage and internet fundraising.”

Here is how he started his column:

“The United States, an alleged superpower, may soon join Italy, Greece and Russia as validation of Adam Smith’s cautionary maxim:  There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.  The irony is that America’s slow disintegration is occurring in perhaps its most robust state, Texas, where the southern U.S. border essentially no longer exists.

“In December alone, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 302,000 encounters with illegal migrants at the southwest border.  Total encounters for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 were an almost incomprehensible 4.7 million.

“To endure, great nations find their way to solving large problems. Migration may turn out to be the issue that swallowed America’s democratic order.”

Henninger reported that Oklahoma’s conservative Republican senator, James Lankford, has spent weeks attempting to shape a compromise on illegal migration with Democrats that would permit passage as well of a supplemental bill that has funding for embattled Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.

So far, Henninger adds, Lankford has failed, at least in part because Republicans in Congress, out of fealty to Trump, are trying not to pass a border bill to avoid “giving” a win to Biden.

“The politics of immigration are well known.  But let’s step away from the Beltway mud-wrestle for a moment to acknowledge the practical, unavoidable result of Trump’s position.  Doing nothing so that he and Republicans will have an issue to run on means the migrant open hydrant will flow daily for all of 2024.  And that means an additional two million or so illegal migrants will enter the U.S.”

So, there you have it, as in:

• More inability for the Biden Administration to craft campaign themes that will appeal to the Democrat base, as well as to attract independent voters fearful of another Trump term.

• More inaction on the part of Republicans in Congress to try to solve a huge problem at the Southern Border for fear of, (a) helping Biden, and (b) irritating the untethered one, Trump.

In all of this, the basic form of democracy in the United State is at risk.  Again.  And still.

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 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.

Don’t you like that word – equivocating?

Here is what it means:

To use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead, prevaricate or hedge.”

That’s exactly what Donald Trump’s sycophants do.  They equivocate.

Atlantic Magazine’s Tom Nichols made that point very well in a column he wrote recently.

It started this way:

“’I didn’t come here,’ Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina complained last week, ‘to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss.  I came here to pass good, sound public policy.’”

Good for Tillis.

Nichols wrote that Tillis was referring to Republicans who were abandoning a deal on border security because they thought reaching a solution with President Joe Biden would hurt Trump’s electoral chances in the fall.

“’It is immoral,’ Tillis added, ‘to look the other way because you think this is the linchpin for Trump to win.’”

More from Nichols:

“In theory, Republicans care deeply about the situation on the Southern United States border.  In reality, most of them seem to care only about whatever Trump wants at any given moment, and what Trump wants is to take refuge in the Oval Office from his multiple legal problems.

“Tillis’ outburst, although welcome, was a rare moment of candor from a senior Republican senator about the degree to which the party’s once and future nominee has gutted the GOP of any remaining principles.”

Nichols also criticizes, as I do, those “who remain quiet in the face of Trump’s ghoulish attacks on others rather risk Trump turning his ire – and his MAGA – on them.

“When challenged, they speak up only long enough to make excuses for Trump and engage in moral obfuscation over issues that they must certainly know are not remotely complicated, such as whether the presumptive nominee of the Republican party should defame a woman he’s been found liable for sexually abusing.”

To me, remaining quiet in the face of Trump’s criminal actions reminds of what it appears many Germans did in the face of Adolph Hitler.  [I use the word “appears” because I wasn’t there and, thus, do not know first-hand.]  Many Germans remained silent while Hitler killed millions of helpless Jewish people.

And, don’t forget – Trump welcomes comparisons to Hitler.

And, to conclude, this from Wall Street Journal retired editor Gerard Baker:

“Meatball Ron has done it.  Ted did it years ago.  Little Marco, too.  Maybe others will prove to have more cojones than that growing parade of men who once asked us to believe they were leaders but turned out to be sycophants.”

I say enough of both:  Enough of Trump and enough of those who equivocate on his behalf!

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 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.

Remember the “head of a pin”analogy?

I have used it a couple times recently to indicate that I do not know a lot about some stuff.  Like technology.

But, this time, I used it to describe what littie I know about what has become a routine matter in pro football:  “Analytics.”

A story appeared in the Wall Street Journal to portray what happened that enabled the Detroit Lions to lose a football conference championship game against the San Francisco 49ers.

The result, the story said, came down to analytics.

The story appeared under this headline:  “What Ended the Detroit Lions’ Dream Season? Math:  Lions coach Dan Campbell swears by going for it on fourth down, and analytics support him.  But in the NFC title game, the numbers didn’t work out.”

More from the story:

“The Detroit Lions led the San Francisco 49ers by 14 points midway through the third quarter of the NFC Championship, and they were in position to pour it on with a field goal.  That’s when coach Dan Campbell made the decision that defied a basic doctrine of traditional football thinking. 

“The Lions went for it on fourth down.  They didn’t get it.  Then they proceeded to blow their shot at the Super Bowl. 

“In the second half, the Lions twice turned the ball over on downs when they were in position to kick a field goal.  Those decisions potentially cost them six points in a game they lost by three.”

But the story adds that, “in truth, the aggressive fourth-down calls are more a reflection of the modern NFL than they are a brazen anomaly.  These types of calls are increasingly common because they’re supported by analytics, and in both instances on Sunday, statistical models aligned with Campbell’s calls.  That type of forward thinking is one of the reasons for Detroit’s turnaround under him—until it backfired in spectacular fashion.”

Now, for me, at best an armchair watcher of pro football, especially near the end of the season (though I may forego the Super Bowl, with all its hype and not much football), going for it on fourth down on nearly all occasions has the potential for backfire.

To his credit, Campbell, the coach, took full credit – or, perhaps, debit – for the “going-for-it” decisions. 

Here is a summary of how it went.

• Up 24-10 near the middle of the third quarter on Sunday, Campbell faced a fourth-and-2 situation with an obvious choice, per old-school football logic.  A made kick would have put him up three scores, forcing the 49ers to muster at least two touchdowns and a field goal over the rest of the game.  But Campbell instead put the ball in quarterback Jared Goff’s hands, and a pass to Josh Reynolds was broken up.

Despite the outcome, Campbell’s decision was backed by something better than his gut. It’s called data. One popular model said the Lions had an 85 per cent chance of winning by going for it, and 82 per cent if they kicked the field goal.

• Later, with less than 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Lions now trailing by three, Campbell faced another critical decision on a fourth-and-3.  Again, the model recommended going for it.  This time, it boosted Detroit’s win probability to 28 per cent versus 26 per cent kicking the field goal. 

The Lions’ offense stayed on the field, the defense pressured Goff, and another pass fell incomplete.

So, analytics, the head-of-a-pin issue for me.

As a fan, I like it because it adds interest to the game.  And, if a coach like Campbell takes responsibility for any decision, that’s good for the game, too.

And, speaking as a fan, I like the two outcomes last week – the Kansas City Chief over the Baltimore Ravens and the 49ers over the Lions.  Regarding the latter, it also would have been fun to see the Lions make the Super Bowl, having not made the trip for so many years.

But, it’s the 49ers…my team, if, in fact, I have one.