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

I guess this would be a “”logical day to write about the U.S. Supreme Court and abortion, given all the news about the leak of a draft opinion proposing to undo Roe V. Wade.

But, for me, there never is a logical day for such writing.  I will leave all of the discussion about abortion (at least almost all of the discussion) — not to mention vitriol — to the pundits and commentators.

For me, this is a good day to write about an long-timne reality in Oregon – the so-called “Two Oregons” – the urban one and the rural one that never can get together.  Or, at least they refuse to understand each other.

The division persists today. 

And the divide exists in other states, as well.

I encountered the reality when I worked as deputy director of the Oregon Economic Development a number of years ago.  For us, it was easier to recruit businesses to grow and expand in urban areas than it was in rural areas.

That’s just the reality of the economy.  But, at the risk of defending myself when no one is charging me with anything, my colleagues and I in the department made a variety of intentional efforts to reach out to rural Oregonians.

We traveled the state.  We welcomed interaction with rural residents.  We tried to understand their perceptions, though, to state the obvious, all of us in the department were from an urban area, either Salem or Portland.

On this subject, a solid story appeared in the New York Times early this week written by Chloe Maxmin, the youngest female state senator in the State of Maine’s history, and Canyon Woodward, who ran two of her campaigns.  They wrote a book – “Dirt Road Revival” – which offered some suggestions about how to bridge the urban-rural divide.Top of Form

Their notions are not magic answers, but they are worth considering. 

Here is how their essay in the NY Times started:

“NOBLEBORO, Maine — We say this with love to our fellow Democrats: Over the past decade, you willfully abandoned rural communities.  As the party turned its focus to the cities and suburbs, its outreach became out of touch and impersonal.  To rural voters, the message was clear:  You don’t matter.

“Now, Republicans control dozens of state legislatures, and Democrats have only tenuous majorities in Congress at a time in history when we simply can’t afford to cede an inch.   The party can’t wait to start correcting course. It may be too late to prevent a blowout in the fall, but the future of progressive politics — and indeed our democracy — demands that we revive our relationship with rural communities.

“As two young progressives raised in the country, we were dismayed as small towns like ours swung to the right.  But we believed that Democrats could still win conservative rural districts if they took the time to drive down the long dirt roads where we grew up, have face-to-face conversations with moderate Republican and independent voters and speak a different language, one rooted in values rather than policy.”

That’s good advice.

I put it this way.  State agency administrators and legislators from urban areas in Oregon should make an intentional effort to travel around Oregon to meet people in rural areas. 

Travel the “dirt roads.”

Talk to these citizens.  But don’t just talk.  Listen.

Maxmin and Woodward did this in Maine, and it worked.

“To us,” they say, “it was proof that the dogmas that have long governed American politics could and should be challenged.  Over the past decade, many Democrats seem to have stopped trying to persuade people who disagreed with them, counting instead on demographic shifts they believed would carry them to victory — if only they could turn out their core supporters.

“The choice to prioritize turnout in Democrat strongholds over persuasion of moderate voters has cost the party election after election.  But Democrats can run and win in communities that the party has written off, and they need not be Joe Manchin-like conservative Democrats to do so.”

In 2018, the two authors reported, with chagrin, that the chair of the Democrat National Committee, Tom Perez, told MSNBC, “You can’t door-knock in rural America.”

In effect, what he said was that rural America wasn’t worth a dime.  He wrote off hundreds of thousands of citizens throughout the country.

Maxmin and Woodward add this:

“That blinkered strategy is holding the party back.  When Democrats talk only to their own supporters, they see but a small fraction of the changes roiling this country.  Since 2008, residents of small towns have fallen behind cities on many major economic benchmarks, and they watched helplessly as more and more power and wealth were consolidated in cities.  

“The current Democrat strategy leads, not just to bad policy, but also to bad politics.  Our democracy rewards the party that can win support over large areas.  Ceding rural America leaves a narrow path to victory even in the best circumstances.

“What much of the party establishment doesn’t understand is that rural life is rooted in shared values of independence, common sense, tradition, frugality, community, and hard work.  Democrat campaigns often seem to revolve around white papers and wonky policy.  In our experience, politicians lose rural people when they regurgitate politically triangulated lines and talk about the vagaries of policy.

“Rural folks vote on what rings true and personal to them:  Can this person be trusted? Is he or she authentic.”

Some political scientists and many mainstream Democrats don’t believe their own strategies must change.  Rather, they believe rural Republicans are too ignorant to vote in their own best interest.  

“It’s a counterproductive, condescending story that serves only to drive the wedge between Democrats and rural communities deeper yet.” 

And, the two authors offer this anecdote:

“Chloe has knocked on more than 20,000 doors over the past two cycles, listening to stories of loss and isolation.  One man told her she was the first person to listen to him.  Most campaigns, he said, didn’t even bother to knock on his door; they judged him for what his house looked like.  Another voter said she had been undecided between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump until Election Day but voted for Trump because, she said, at the Republican convention, he talked about regular American working people and Clinton didn’t at her convention.”

Something has to change.

Democrats need a radically different strategy if they are to restore their reputation as champions of working people, committed to improving their lives, undaunted by wealth and power.

In their campaigns, the two turned down the party consultants and created their own canvassing universe — the targeted list of voters they talk to during the election season.

As for campaign signs?  They were hand-painted or made of scavenged wood pallets by volunteers, with images of loons, canoes, and other hallmarks of the Maine countryside.  Into the trash went consultant-created mailers.  Instead, the two designed and carried out their own direct mail program for half the price of what the party consultants wanted to charge while reaching 20 per cent more voters.

In addition, volunteers wrote more than 5,000 personal postcards, handwritten and addressed to neighbors in their own community.  And, they defied traditional advice by refusing to say a negative word about their opponents, no matter how badly they wanted to fight back as the campaigns grew more heated.

More from the two authors: 

“We heard some rough stuff, and we didn’t tolerate hate.  But through the simple act of listening, we discovered that we could almost always catch a glimpse of common ground if we focused on values, not party or even policy.

“If people said they were fed up with politics, we’d say:  ‘Us, too! That’s why we’re here.’  If they despised Democrats, we’d tell them how we had deep issues with the party as well and we were trying to make it better.  It was how we differentiated ourselves from the national party and forged a sense of collective purpose.”

It is possible to apply these lessons to Legislative and Executive Branch bastions, both of which have tended to ignore rural areas for too long.

If I was going to advise Democrats in charge of nearly all sectors of political power in Oregon, I would say – “Go to rural Oregon and listen.”

If I was going to advise the top brass in state agencies, I would say the same thing.

All of this reminds of one of the favorite sayings of one of my partners in my old firm.  He was fond of saying, “God gave you two ears and one mouth.  So, listen twice as much as you talk.”

That is a basic prescription for solving at least part of the urban-rural divide in Oregon – and elsewhere.

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

If you consider the games Republican leaders are playing these days, you would think politics is just that – a game, with not much at stake.

It’s not.

The very future of the form of U.S. democracy is at stake.

No one writes this better than columnist Thomas Friedman whose work appears in the New York Times.  One of his most recent pieces ridiculed “soulless” leaders in America who trash the country in favor of their own ends.

If you wonder about this, look no farther than Donald Trump or his sycophant Kevin McCarthy.

They want what they want because they want it – and the “it” is to be in charge of America and have thousands bow at their feet.

Here’s a summary of Friedman’s column.

“So, here’s my bottom line:  Several years ago, a Hebrew biography of Ariel Sharon was published with the title “He Doesn’t Stop at Red Lights.”  It is a fitting title for our times, too.

“What is so unnerving to me about the state of the world today are the number of leaders ready to shamelessly, in broad daylight — and with a sense of utter impunity — drive through red lights.  That is, to drive through the legal and normative gates that have kept the world relatively peaceful over the last 70 years, during which we had no great power wars, and have enabled more people to emerge from extreme poverty faster than at any other era in history.

“We will miss this if it ends.  To maintain it, though, it’s necessary that we help all those unnamed Ukrainians fighting for their freedom to succeed.  And it is necessary that we make sure that Putin’s quest to find dignity by crushing that Ukrainian freedom movement fails.

“But none of that is sufficient if all those politicians in America who also think that they can run through any red light to gain or hold power succeed.  Who will follow our model then?

“I can’t think of another time in my life when I felt the future of America’s democracy and the future of democracy globally were more in doubt.  And don’t kid yourself; they are intertwined.  And don’t kid yourself; they both can still go either way.”

Back to the games metaphor.

Republicans like Trump and McCarthy behave like children, just playing a game. 

• If they don’t get their way, they pout.
• If they don’t get what they want, they get mad.
• If they say one thing one day, they will say something else – probably the opposite – the next day.

But it is not only self-proclaimed Republican leaders who treat political governance as a game.  Many voters do, too.

On this subject, read words written by the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin this morning and take no solace in them – because solace is not warranted.

“One school of punditry postulates that the rise of the anti-truth, anti-democracy MAGA movement is all about its demagogic leaders (e.g., former president Donald Trump) and opportunistic enablers (e.g. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California).  

“The theory goes that if Republicans offered something ‘better,’ the GOP base would be happy to hop off the delusional, authoritarian bandwagon.

“Skepticism is warranted.  After years of marinating in right-wing media sewage — everything from birtherism to immigrant scaremongering to the ‘big lie’ — Republican voters unsurprisingly show no sign of discomfort with the MAGA mentality. 

“To the contrary, over half of Republicans say they buy into the QAnon child-trafficking conspiracy.  Over half remain convinced the 2020 election was stolen.  When Trump briefly tried to encourage coronavirus vaccination, his crowd booed.

“In other words, the GOP suffers not only from a supply shortage of patriotic, sober-minded, pro-democracy leaders willing to call out lies — but from a demand shortage, too.  If GOP voters were offered candidates ‘better’ than the likes of Trump or pale imitators such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who delights in using government to retaliate against corporate critics) or Missouri’s Senator Josh Hawley (who eagerly smeared Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as soft of child pornography), would anyone vote for them?”

I suggest the answer is yes.  These voters would cast ballot for anyone who catered to their outlandish views.

The issue is not just stupid Republican leaders, though that’s true.  The label stupid also to those who follow them.

It’s time for smart Americans – yes, there are some – to reject political stupidity and take up the just cause of saving America…from itself.

In a spirit of equanimity, this admonition applies to both political parties.  Above, I have written most about Republicans, but Democrats, too, ought to practice high-minded political discourse, not gamesmanship.

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

As I write this, I have played my last golf round for the winter in La Quinta, California.

The location is The Palms, a great, 20-year-old track that sits on the border of PGA West, or as it is known, the Western Home of Golf.  The Palms is separate from PGA West, sitting near, as PGA West does, the San Jacinto Mountain Range.

Great views.  Great weather.  Great golf.

Here are a few highlights of my sojourn in the California desert.

• I had the privilege of playing four times a week with a great group of guys, some of whom live in the desert year-round – kudos to them for staying in the intense desert heat in the summer – and others are snowbirds like me.

I found a home with this golf group a couple years ago and it is great to be able to play every week.  Good golf is not necessarily the goal.  Score doesn’t matter.   Friendship does.

• I also experienced this year a first for me – getting hit by a golf ball on the course…a first in more than 40 years of golf.  The shot was a “hozzle-rocket” – read “shank” – hit by a friend of mine.  He’s still a friend!  The golf ball me in the head.  No lasting damage; just a lot of blood and a scare.

• In our four-times a week game, we play mostly “for the love of game,” though a little money changes hands.  Never more than five bucks, either winning or losing.

One of my friends said the other day that he suspected, over the winter, most of us came out about even.  Winning sometimes.  Losing sometimes.

All of us feel a great sense of good fortune to be able to play at The Palms, a course designed by golf pro Freddie Couples and his friend, Brian Curley.  I tell my friends who have not played the course that its main defense is the 18 greens – hitting them, holding them, and putting on them.

So much so that a common story is that Canadian golf pro Mike Weir, before he won The Masters’ Golf Tournament a few years ago, came to The Palms to practice putting.  Not to suggest that The Palms is as good as Augusta National, but I guess I would imagine it is the ballpark.

When I first joined The Palms four years ago, veterans told me it’s not possible to read greens effectively.  Rather, you have to memorize what putts do.  And, good luck with the short memories of old guys like me.

A few other Palms’ distinctives:

+  There are no tee times.  The pros work you in on the 1^st tee when you arrive at the course…which means there is always a pro on the tee.

+  The requirement is to play in three-and-one-half hours, easy to do if you focus on playing golf intentionally, but hard to do if you grow accustomed to “resort golf” where rounds can take up to five hours.

+  Cell phones are banned on the course.  Or, at least they are banned from producing out-loud signals.  In a nod to players who are working, the rules were adjusted a couple years ago to allow checking phones for texts.  But, still, phones are not supposed to ring on the course or in the clubhouse and you are not allowed to talk on a phone other than in the clubhouse parking lot.

So, my wife and I head north tomorrow morning.  In some ways, tough to leave given all that La Quinta has to offer.  But, overall, we are looking forward to being home – and Salem, Oregon is home. 

For me, the good news is that there is golf in Salem, too…at Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club.  Will be good to be home at my “forever track” with all of my friends from the Salem area.

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

I’ve heard of dumb stunts by stupid Republicans, but what happened in Texas takes the cake. 

And, then I also hear about Madison Cawthorne, a member of congress, who almost outdoes Texas.

In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott thought he had a brilliant idea.

Why not rattle the Biden Administration by busing migrants from the southwest border to the nation’s capital during a period of record crossings?  Then, he thought, Biden and company would see the immigration problem first-hand.

What happened?

Well, many of the immigrants said they were grateful for the chartered bus ride to Washington, D.C.

“In a way, it’s actually perfect,” said Bilal Askaryar, a spokesman for Welcome With Dignity, a collective of about 100 local and national groups that help migrants.  “Unintentionally, Governor Abbott sent them to one of the best places in the nation to welcome people.”

Thanks to the Washington Post, here is an account from another immigrant who had a State of Texas ticket to D.C.:

“I would like to say thank you to the governor of Texas,” Chadrack Mboyo-Bola, 26, said after he and 13 other migrants stepped off one of the chartered buses that had provided a 33-hour ride paid for by the State of Texas.

“Blocks from the U.S. Capitol, they were greeted by volunteers who would help them reach their desired destinations around the country to await their day in immigration court.

Three days earlier, Mboyo-Bola and his family had crossed into the United States from Mexico along the border in Central Texas after an eight-week journey from Brazil.  After spending a day in Border Patrol custody in Eagle Pass, Texas, they and about 20 other new immigrants accepted an offer to board a Washington-bound bus in nearby Del Rio.

No word on whether Abbott is considering reversing his stupid stunt. 

If he is smart, he will.  But, in fact, it appears he is stupid and, as it has been said many times in the past, “you can’t fix stupid.”

Speaking of “you can’t fix stupid,” consider this from Washington Post writer Dana Milbank about Cawthorn:

“The 26-year-old Republican congressman from North Carolina was caught bringing a loaded gun through airport security, his second such incident.  Police released footage of him getting pulled over for driving with expired tags and being told to surrender his revoked license.  The Washington Examiner reported allegations against him of insider trading.  Politico published photos of him partying while wearing women’s lingerie.  And a former congressional aide filed a workplace complaint against him.

“Most public figures would call a stretch like that good reason to resign. Cawthorn might just call it ‘April.’”

In conclusion, I just say this — Abbott and Cawthorn deserve each other.  The problem, at the moment, is that we’re stuck with them.    

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

This is one of three departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.  The others are the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of “Just Saying,” which was open earlier this week.

See, I can run two departments at the same time.

Here are good quotes worth remembering.

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  Is Joe Biden up to the job of being president?  That’s a question being asked by some political commentators, as well as, I suspect, by some voters.

Wall Street Journal pundit James Freeman got into the act this with a column entitled, “Don’t Laugh — Biden 2024.”

Freeman wrote:

“In a column recently, I suggested that President Joe Biden avoid public speaking, at least on weighty topics such as weapons of mass destruction. There’s no constitutional reason he can’t limit his communications to written statements, and his spontaneous remarks have proven to be especially troublesome.  

“Even before his disturbing recent series of misstatements on highly consequential issues, many voters had already decided that Biden is not up to the job of being president.”

Comment:  I understand why some questions have arisen about Biden’s capability to serve as president.  It’s not just age; it’s that sometimes he slips up and says stuff he doesn’t fully mean.

If we could be assured that there would be a real, genuine contest to see who would be the next president in 2024 – Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, another Democrat, or a slew of Republicans – then I’d be okay with the normal election process to choose our next leader.

But, a real election is not likely to occur with former president Donald Trump waiting in the wings.  He will stoke division, dishonesty, and hatred as he tries to rise again to the nation’s top political job without regard to the country he wants to lead.

As one voter, that prospect is more than I can tolerate.

MORE FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  The newspaper carried a piece by columnist Peggy Noonan under this headline —  “Joe Biden Has a Presentation Problem; voters would be grateful if he stopped talking down to them and learned to be straightforward.”

Noonan went on:

“I want to talk about Joe Biden and his unique problems presenting his presidency.  You’re aware of his political position and the polls.  The latest from CNN has him at 39 per cent approval.  Public admiration began to plummet during the Afghanistan withdrawal.  That disaster came as it was becoming clear the president was handing his party’s progressive caucus functional control of his domestic agenda, which fell apart and never recovered.

“All politics grows from policies, and policies are announced and argued for through presentation, including, crucially, speeches. Joe Biden has a presentation problem.

“When he stands at a podium and reads from a teleprompter, his mind seems to wander quickly from the meaning of what he’s saying to the impression he’s making.  You can sort of see this, that he’s always wondering how he’s coming across.  When he catches himself, he tends to compensate by enacting emotion.

“But the emotion he seems most publicly comfortable with is indignation. An example is his answer to a reporter’s question in November about the Administration’s plans to compensate illegal-immigrant parents who’d been separated from their children at the border.

“Suddenly he was angry-faced; he raised his voice, increased his tempo, and started jabbing the air.  ‘You lost your child. It’s gone! You deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstances.’  Then, catching himself, he added mildly, ‘What that will be, I have no idea.’  He was trying to show presentness, engagement.  But there’s often an “angry old man yelling at clouds” aspect to this.

“There are small tics that worked long ago.  He often speaks as if we are fascinated by the family he came from and that formed him. Thus, he speaks of the old neighborhood and lessons.  And my mother told me, Joey, don’t comb your hair with buttered toast.

“This was great for a Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but not now.  For all the mystique of the presidency, people hired you to do a job and want you to be clear and have a plan. They aren’t obsessed with your family, they’re obsessed with their family.”

Comment:  Biden has some time to sharpen his approach and his delivery.  I agree with Noonan who says, “He should commit, when speaking, to ‘Be Here Now.’  He should be straightforward and modest.”

Biden’s entire presidency rides on his ability to change – and, whether he does or not, his re-election would be better than one of the alternatives, Donald Trump.

NEW YORK TIMES:  Columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a piece in the NY Times ridiculing “soulless” leaders in America – and I add that most of them label themselves as Republicans.  Here’s a summary of Friedman’s column.

“So, here’s my bottom line:  Several years ago, a Hebrew biography of Ariel Sharon was published with the title “He Doesn’t Stop at Red Lights.”  It is a fitting title for our times, too.

“What is so unnerving to me about the state of the world today are the number of leaders ready to shamelessly, in broad daylight — and with a sense of utter impunity — drive through red lights.  That is, to drive through the legal and normative gates that have kept the world relatively peaceful over the last 70 years, during which we had no great power wars, and have enabled more people to emerge from extreme poverty faster than at any other era in history.

“We will miss this if it ends.  To maintain it, though, it’s necessary that we help all those unnamed Ukrainians fighting for their freedom to succeed.  And it is necessary that we make sure that Putin’s quest to find dignity by crushing that Ukrainian freedom movement fails.

“But none of that is sufficient if all those politicians in America who also think that they can run through any red light to gain or hold power succeed.  Who will follow our model then?

“I can’t think of another time in my life when I felt the future of America’s democracy and the future of democracy globally were more in doubt.  And don’t kid yourself; they are intertwined.  And don’t kid yourself; they both can still go either way.”

Comment:  Friedman has it right.  One of my good friends has lamented lately about the tendency of some Republicans running for office (including in Oregon) to express fealty for the soulless Donald Trump as they – the Republicans – campaign.

Better if they would express honesty, forthrightness, and a soul, even if in so doing, they could lose an election.  Better to be honest that a soulless winner.

If they don’t rise to the occasion of better government for the people, they will have catered – or, read, cratered – to unethical behavior.  As Friedman writes, this will come at the risk of the America we have known for 70 years.

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

I wrote yesterday about this subject, saying that “man’s inhumanity to man” confounds rationale understanding, especially given actions by Vladimir Putin, Adolph Hitler and other tyrants who have zero regard for human life.

Then, I came across an e-mail from my friend, Sam Skillern, who runs an excellent organization in Salem, Oregon, Salem Leadership Foundation, which works around town to help charitable organizations deal with a host of issues, including immigration.

With modesty, he wrote about how his organization uses “tables” to do its work – gatherings of community residents around a “table” so they can talk about what makes Salem and Keizer work – or propose commitments to make the area work better.

The “tables” idea is important, for it is an image used to indicate that people gather together to share perspectives and “talk with each other.”  No need to condemn or oppose.  Just open communication.  On some occasions, it might have been called “a round table” to connote the fact that there was no head, just equal participants.

In his e-mail, Skillern said he had just come from a meeting which featured comments from several community leaders:

“This month we heard from Josh Graves, CEO of Catholic Community Services.   In June we’ll hear from Osvaldo Avila, board chair of Salem-Keizer Public Schools.   Other speakers have included Pastor Ronnie Brooks, Keizer Mayor Cathy Clark, civic leader Gregg Peterson, and police chiefs John Teague (Keizer) and Trevor Womack (Salem).
 
“Josh shared about the key concepts of Catholic Social Teaching.   Now, before I lose some folks on theological or political grounds, please bear with me.   It’s good stuff.  And that’s exactly what Breaking Bread/Breaking Barriers is for:  Idea-sharing and productive dialogue with intelligence, goodwill, and candor in the Socratic tradition – a concept Chief Teague shared with us.”

So, here is the list of commitments Skillern shared:

Life and Dignity of the Human Person.  Every human is created in the image and likeness of God.

Call to Family, Community and Participation.  The human person is not only sacred, but social.  How we organize our society – socially, legally, economically, and politically – directly affects human dignity and the ability of every person to grow in community.
 
Solidarity.  We are one human family.  We are our neighbors’ keepers, wherever they may be.
 
The Dignity of Work.  The economy must serve people, not the other way around.  Work is more than a way to make a living, it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation.
 
Rights and Responsibilities.  Every person has a fundamental right to life – the right that makes all other rights possible.  Each person also has a right to the conditions for living a decent life: food, health care, housing, education, and employment.
 
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable.  A fundamental measure of our society is how we care for and stand with our poor and vulnerable brothers and sisters.
 
Care for God’s Creation.  The world that God created has been entrusted to all of us.  Our stewardship of the earth is a form of participation in God’s act of creating and sustaining the world.
 

“In these precepts,” Skillern wrote, “I see both compassion and empowerment, not entitlement.  I hear ‘we’ rather than ‘us’ and ‘them.’   I perceive neither ‘left vs. right’ … nor ‘progressive vs. conservative.’”

I share Skillern’s perspective. 

Follow the precepts above and they will help to avoid more “man’s inhumanity to man” tragedies.

[Full disclosure:  As a lobbyist, I represented Catholic Community Services – CCC — and it was pleasure to associate myself with such a “community-centered organization.”  Josh Graves was the deputy director at that time and I worked closely with him.  So it’s good to see him elevated to the directorship.  My firm, now called CFM Advocates, still represents CCC.]

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

I wrote yesterday about this subject, saying that “man’s inhumanity to man” confounds rationale understanding, especially given actions by Vladimir Putin, Adolph Hitler and other tyrants who have zero regard for human life.

Then, I came across an e-mail from my friend, Sam Skillern, who runs an excellent organization in Salem, Oregon, Salem Leadership Foundation, which works around town to help charitable organizations deal with a host of issues, including immigration.

With modesty, he wrote about how his organization uses “tables” to do its work – gatherings of community residents around a “table” so they can talk about what makes Salem and Keizer work – or propose commitments to make the area work better.

The “tables” idea is important, for it is an image used to indicate that people gather together to share perspectives and “talk with each other.”  No need to condemn or oppose.  Just open communication.  On some occasions, it might have been called “a round table” to connote the fact that there was no head, just equal participants.

In his e-mail, Skillern said he had just come from a meeting which featured comments from several community leaders:

“This month we heard from Josh Graves, CEO of Catholic Community Services.   In June we’ll hear from Osvaldo Avila, board chair of Salem-Keizer Public Schools.   Other speakers have included Pastor Ronnie Brooks, Keizer Mayor Cathy Clark, civic leader Gregg Peterson, and police chiefs John Teague (Keizer) and Trevor Womack (Salem).
 
“Josh shared about the key concepts of Catholic Social Teaching.   Now, before I lose some folks on theological or political grounds, please bear with me.   It’s good stuff.  And that’s exactly what Breaking Bread/Breaking Barriers is for:  Idea-sharing and productive dialogue with intelligence, goodwill, and candor in the Socratic tradition – a concept Chief Teague shared with us.”

So, here is the list of commitments Skillern shared:

Life and Dignity of the Human Person.  Every human is created in the image and likeness of God.

Call to Family, Community and Participation.  The human person is not only sacred, but social.  How we organize our society – socially, legally, economically, and politically – directly affects human dignity and the ability of every person to grow in community.
 
Solidarity.  We are one human family.  We are our neighbors’ keepers, wherever they may be.
 
The Dignity of Work.  The economy must serve people, not the other way around.  Work is more than a way to make a living, it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation.
 
Rights and Responsibilities.  Every person has a fundamental right to life – the right that makes all other rights possible.  Each person also has a right to the conditions for living a decent life: food, health care, housing, education, and employment.
 
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable.  A fundamental measure of our society is how we care for and stand with our poor and vulnerable brothers and sisters.
 
Care for God’s Creation.  The world that God created has been entrusted to all of us.  Our stewardship of the earth is a form of participation in God’s act of creating and sustaining the world.
 

“In these precepts,” Skillern wrote, “I see both compassion and empowerment, not entitlement.  I hear ‘we’ rather than ‘us’ and ‘them.’   I perceive neither ‘left vs. right’ … nor ‘progressive vs. conservative.’”

I share Skillern’s perspective. 

Follow the precepts above and they will help to avoid more “man’s inhumanity to man” tragedies.

[Full disclosure:  As a lobbyist, I represented Catholic Community Services – CCC — and it was pleasure to associate myself with such a “community-centered organization.”  Josh Graves was the deputy director at that time and I worked closely with him.  So it’s good to see him elevated to the directorship.  My firm, now called CFM Advocates, still represents CCC.]

Part 1

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

The phrase in this blog headline courses – or, should I say, “coarses” – through my brain these days as I watch a range of current events.

Actually, better said, it lurks in the back – sometimes the front – of my mind as I watch inhumane developments around the world.

The suffering and genocide Vladimir Putin is wreaking on Ukraine is clearly a set of war crimes.

For me, Putin’s war crimes recall the incredibly terrible deeds racked up by Adolph Hitler in World War II as he tried to exterminate an entire race of people – the Jews.  Thankfully, I was not alive then, but have read enough about it – as well as visited Germany a couple times – that Hitler’s atrocities ring clear.

Current day Germans generally try to forget the atrocities and, frankly, I don’t blame them for wanting to do so, if only because so much time has elapsed from past World War II generations.  I do hope at least a faint memory prevents a recurrence.

When I went on-line to look up the phrase “man’s inhumanity to man,” here is a quick summary of what I found:

“The two main examples include the tragedy of the Jews in World War II and the African Americans’ during the slave trade.”

So, instead of just thinking about Hitler’s atrocities, it also makes sense of remember the abhorrent slave trade in our own country.

The expression itself — “man’s inhumanity to man” — derives from a quote in a poem called From Man was Made to Mourn: A Dirge, which was written by Robert Burns in 1785.  It speaks of oppression and cruelty that mankind causes and that mankind suffers.

It is impossible for me to imagine what possesses some people – Putin and Hitler are only two examples – to wreak such havoc.  They clearly don’t care one whit about human life.

In the face of such realities, I turned – properly so – to the Bible to remind myself of what it might say about this issue.

Here in the California desert, where my wife I attend Southwest Church, the great pastor there always says this after he reads from the Bible:  “What I have just read is from the greatest book ever written, the Bible, and I bear witness that every word of it is true.”

Well said!

So, what the scripture says mimics this paragraph:

“Each life is truly a gift from God.  We can honor His gift by cherishing our own lives, as well as respecting and valuing the lives of others.  We are precious in His sight, and by trusting Him and being diligent in our choices, we can share light and truth with the world around us.”

I found these key verses:

·      John 3:16/  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

·      Romans 5:8/  But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

·      Matthew 6:26/  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

·      Psalm 100:3/  Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

·      1 John 3:1-2/  See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 

Notice that these words don’t say that God made Americans, so we are better than all others.  They say that God “loved the world.”  The entire world. 

Therefore, the call is for us to value all human beings, no matter whether we agree with them or not.  Neighbors with whom we disagree?  Yes.  Immigrants?  Yes.  Members of a political party other than our own?  Yes.   

They were made by God and they have the potential, the Bible says, “to become his children” if they choose to believe in Him. That’s the best way to avoid “man’s inhumanity to man.”

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

If you were going to write about the intoxication of political power for its own sake, there might be no better object than Kevin McCarthy.

Ace newspaper correspondent, Dan Balz, showed up over the weekend with a well-written and well-documented piece on McCarthy.  In the New York Times, it chronicled the over-the-top, dishonest effort by McCarthy to be Speaker of the House if Republicans take control next November.

So much so that he will do anything to remain in contention for the top job.

• Lie?  Yes.
• Change accounts in mid-stream?  Yes.
• Scrap decorum and honesty on the Republican side of the House? Yes.
• Bow at the altar of Donald Trump?  Yes.

Balz’ piece appeared under this subhead:

“Caught in a lie after denying that he talked about urging Trump to resign after the January 6 insurrection, the GOP House leader seeks the former president’s forgiveness to keep his speakership hopes alive.”

Balz continued:

“Power is intoxicating, its pursuit revealing of character but sometimes debilitating; House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) is Exhibit A.  In his ceaseless drive to become the next Speaker of the House, he has demonstrated weakness, hypocrisy, and a willingness to lie to save his skin.

“Thanks to the reporting of Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns of the New York Times, and the incontrovertible power of audio recordingsto bite the mighty at the most inopportune times, it all came together badly for the politician who had seemed poised to lead the House next January.”

Martin and Burns, Balz wrote, quoted McCarthy as having said, in the days immediately after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, “I’ve had it with this guy.”  He called President Donald Trump’s actions on the day of the attack “atrocious and totally wrong,” according to the journalists.

McCarthy told other House leaders on January 10 that he intended to say to Trump the following: “I think impeachment will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

After the Times’ story was published Thursday morning, McCarthy issued a scathing statement denying the report.

“The New York Times’ reporting on me is totally false and wrong. It comes as no surprise that the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda.  The past year and a half have proven that our country was better off when President Trump was in the White House and rather than address the real issues facing Americans, the corporate media is more concerned with profiting from manufactured political intrigue from politically motivated sources.”

Unfortunately for McCarthy, Martin and Burns had the goods, a tape recording of McCarthy’s comments.

Tough for him to refute the facts when he has to hear them in his own voice.

Balz writes on:

“This is what the Republican Party in the House of Representatives now stands for — the abandonment of a principled conservative leader and the possible elevation of a politician whose abiding principle is the pursuit of power, one who has bent and bowed before a former president whose actions he denounced and knew were wrong.”

Balz hopes, as do I, that Republicans think hard about whether to elevate McCarthy to the speakership.

If they cave, Balz concludes with this:  “It will add another ignoblechapter to the modern history of a Republican Party that has soiled itself in bending under Trump’s grip.”

I agree.

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

If I was former Oregon senator Betsy Johnson running as an independent for governor, I would relish reading a story in this week’s Wall Street Journal.

Under this headline – “Beware, party bosses, the rise of the ‘unaffiliateds’ is coming for you” – here is what it said:

“In recent years, Gallup has found in poll after poll that, by big margins, more Americans consider themselves Independents than Republicans or Democrats.  Last month, 40 per cent of Americans identified as Independents; 28 per cent as Republicans, and 30 per cent as Democrats.”

Similar trends are occurring in Oregon.

Here, Johnson has mounted an aggressive campaign to connect with voters – whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent.  Running as an independent herself, she will go directly into the general election without having to go through a primary.

And, given the unpredictable state of politics in Oregon, it might not only be independent voters who choose to cast ballots for Johnson.

It could be the only time in recent history that an independent candidate actually has a chance to ascend to the state’s top political job.  Usually, such candidates play spoiler roles in the race.  Not Johnson.

In the Wall Street Journal article on the growth of independent voters, the author, Tony Woodlief, wrote this:

“The decennial battle over shaping 7,194 congressional and state legislative districts across the United States is drawing to a close.  I hope the politicians involved in this ritual enjoyed it, because 10 years from now, if present trends continue, they’re going to have a much harder time using map-drawing software to pick their voters instead of just letting voters pick their politicians.

“The assumption that most voters are faithful adherents of Team Red or Team Blue drives redistricting, just as it fuels the media’s constant refrain that the nation is bitterly divided.  But subscribing to that view requires ignoring or soft-pedaling the reality that Americans are steadily shifting away from partisan affiliations.”

Some analysts, however, say that independents are closet partisans, citing nationwide election-year surveys showing that most independents say they “lean” toward one major party or the other.  But that’s true in part because pollsters insist that they choose a side.

Woodlief adds:  “Come Election Day, most independents do vote for the candidates of the party they were leaning toward, which skeptics treat as proof of their secret, enduring loyalty.  But following individual voters across multiple elections reveals that independents lean toward a single party with far less consistency and fervor than even the weakest of Democrats and Republicans.

“Imagine this:  Real choices. What all this means is that common-sense candidates with the stomach to enter the fray, knock on doors and raise enough small-dollar donations to garner name recognition, even in a media environment that favors partisan spitball fights, have a real chance of attracting independent voters. The party bosses are sitting atop dying brands.  In the long run, no amount of map-drawing machinations can save them.”

For Johnson in the Oregon governor’s race, the challenge is to appeal statewide on the basis of the image she crafted over more than 20 years in the Legislature.  At the Capitol, she went both ways.  She was a Democrat, but often voted with Republicans.

The tendency showed her independent spirit, as well as an ability to find what I call the “smart middle,” regardless of what the two parties thought or advocated.

It is what has endeared her to many citizens interested in a different kind of governor’s race.

For Johnson, the statistics below indicate the challenge and the opportunity.

Non-affiliated voters have exploded in number since the Oregon’s Motor Voter law went into effect in January 2016.  In the month prior, December 2015, there were 825,282 registered Democrats, 642,552 Republicans, 527,302 nonaffiliated voters, and 2,169,258 voters total.

So, in the past six years, Oregon has added nearly 800,000 new voters, almost 500,000 of whom are not registered with any party.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I dealt with Johnson a lot when I worked as a lobbyist at the Capitol.  I found her to be a breath of fresh air regardless of whether the clients I represented agreed with her or not.

She would say what she thought, sometimes in a gruff, earthy manner, but always with respect for anyone who happened to disagree with her.

So far, even without a primary election, she is carving out a reputation as a credible candidate, if only from the standpoint of how much money she has raised.  In that category, she leads the entire field of Republican and Democrat candidates.

Along the way, she has attracted high-profile support from such Oregon business leaders as Phil Knight from Nike and Tim Boyle from Columbia Sportswear.

That, alone, won’t bring her victory next November.  But it is one reason why a credible analyst told me this about her campaign:  It is possible she could win – not probable, but possible.

For now, that’s all an independent gubernatorial candidate could hope for.