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.

A win for the ages occurred this weekend when the U.S. House passed the major infrastructure funding bill.

It now goes to President Joseph Biden who will sign it with at least a bit of pomp and circumstance.

Here’s the way the Washington Post heralded the result:

“Less than 10 months after taking office and several days after his party suffered a stinging defeat in the Virginia governor’s race, President Biden achieved one of his main goals:  A bi-partisan agreement that would make major investments in all 50 states for years to come.

“Shortly before midnight on Friday, as the House passed the bill 228-206 with the backing of more than 10 Republicans, Biden’s slumping political fortunes appeared to suddenly change.  After seeing his poll numbers slide for weeks, he had suddenly fulfilled a core campaign promise and notched a significant victory after months of legislative gridlock.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to suggest that we took a monumental step forward as a nation,” Biden said Saturday morning at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris. “We did something long overdue, that has long been talked about in Washington, but never actually done.”

But, to go with the headline on this blog, many Republicans – not the 13 members of the U.S. House who voted for it, but other flamethrowers like Representative Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, not to mention Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – yelled and screamed about how mad they were that their party had a role in giving the Biden Administration a legislative victory.

Or, perhaps a political victory that will lift polling on Biden’s performance as president.

Again, from the Post:

“The bill included lots of popular projects and, in another era, probably would’ve gotten significantly more GOP votes.  But we live in this era, in which delivering a political win for the other side — however popular the bill and however much your constituents might want it — is seen as apostasy.  The demand in the GOP for such devotion to the party line and its election prospects is even greater than on the other side.”

That’s what I mean by grabbing a sense of defeat from the jaws of victory.

Smart Republicans should have heralded the achievement – more and better infrastructure for this country (roads, bridges, rail lines), including for their own districts – instead of griping about a victory for Biden.

All of this is a measure for me about how far our democracy has fallen into disrepute.  There is not even enough room to declare victory, and, then, move on to the next battle.

On that score, there is little doubt be that “next battle” will be fought over a second, larger bill — the $1.85 trillion social welfare and climate change legislation.  A potential deal for Democrats finally materialized late last week when the Congressional Black Caucus proposed passing the infrastructure bill immediately and holding a separate vote on the social bill in mid-November.

You can bet the second vote will be even more acrimonious that the first one.

And, voting on such an expansion of social programs will test both Democrats and Republican, if only because the bill represents a huge expansion of government.  So, in that sense, there will not rank with the potential popularity of infrastructure.

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.

It won’t surprise my friends to know that I like words.

More than numbers.  More than charts.  More than graphs. 

Each of those has its place, but, for me, I need words to explain the numbers, charts, and graphs, if not to replace them.  Though one of my business partners would contend, perhaps with some rationale, that numbers, charts and graphs sometimes tell a story better than words.

Regarding the general subject of words, one I don’t like these days is “progressive.”

It is used by many of those involved in politics to describe what they consider to be useful proposals from the left, sometimes the far left.

To me, better word would be liberal.

Now, some might as, why I would write about this.  Well, a couple answers. 

First, I don’t much else to do in retirement, so I spend time thinking about such inconsequential issues.  Second, I am a political junkie, so, for me, words used in politics always spark an interest in me.  Words such as “progressive.”

The dictionary defines the word this way:  “A person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.”

I am not contending that those who use the word are wrong.  They are using the word accurately on the basis of its definition.  It’s just that, for me, the word connotes progress and, sometimes, the best form of progress is to avoid doing something, not to adopt a liberal, left-leaning agenda that almost always calls for more government action.

One of the partners in my old firm, now called CFM Advocates, wrote a piece earlier this week indicating that Oregon’s Fifth District Congressman Kurt Schrader likely would face an election challenge from the left, just as he did two years ago.

The headline on the piece was this:  “Congressman Kurt Schrader Certain to Face Progressive Challenger.”

I beg to differ because the word “progressive” in this headline carries the connotation that Representative Schrader does not support progress.  I know him well, having lobbied him in Salem for several years before he moved to Congress – and he is in favor of progress. 

His definition of progress just differs from what those on the left, sometimes the far-left, favor.  He wants middle ground solutions, which is often where the best public policy solutions lie anyway.  For that reason, he has raised questions about the move in Congress to enact a major new government social and climate change program.

His concern is not with the goals; his concern is with the high price tag.  So, a “progressive” is reported to be running against him because he has not toed the left-leaning line.

Words matter because I want to search for the best ones, not always successfully, I admit, but the search matters.

In politics, “progressive” is not always the best word.  So, I, for one, won’t be using it in the same way it is often used these days. 

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.

Daniel Henninger says election results in the country yesterday illustrate at least one thing:  Voters are tiring of the far left and are heading back to the right.

So, who is Daniel Henninger?

He is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and also serves as deputy editor of the Journal’s editorial page.

I like the way he writes, but, in this case and some others, Henninger comes too quick to easy conclusions.  He contends Democrats are doomed and Republicans are on the rise.  But his conclusion is based essentially on what happened in two states on the East Coast – Virginia and New Jersey. 

For me, no nationwide thrust there.

Henninger is not alone in trying to come up with election conclusions only a day or so after the results.

This from the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which I guess Henninger could have written:

“Democrats were reeling Wednesday from an election that repudiated the progressive agenda nationwide.  They now have a chance to pull out of their tailspin to avert another disaster in 2022, but the early response suggests they might prefer another crash landing.”

Democrats are not known as an organized political party, so it would not be surprising to see them produce “another crash landing.”  But, before pronouncing that as inevitable, better to provide some time for reflection.

One-day-after conclusions are too much and too quick for me.  Without suggesting that I am the equal of Henninger and his prognosticating colleagues, I prefer to let the dust settle just a bit.

Here’s why.

• I hope the Democrats will take stock of what happened in the two states and decide what it means for the next round of elections, the mid-terms.  But I will give them a few weeks to assess results instead of reacting after only a few hours.
• I hope the Republicans will do the same.
• I hope Henninger is right when he posits that far left – those on the left like to call themselves “progressive,” but I dislike the term because they don’t often support what it means to “progress “– lost ground this week.  It could only be the start of a shift away from looney ideas of the sort promoted by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The headline on Henninger’s piece was this:  “The progressives’ disastrous overreach fosters an emerging Republican coalition.”

Well, to use a hackneyed phrase, only time will tell.

• I hope one Donald Trump gains no solace from the election.  Here’s how hill.com described the way Republican Glen Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia.  “The blueprint doesn’t require repudiating the former president — but it doesn’t require kissing Trump’s ring, either.”
• I reason that election results on the East Coast don’t say much about what will happen in Oregon.  Here, Democrats control the political agenda, the Oregon Legislature and all statewide elected offices.  They are likely to retain that control.

How about this from polly-anna, me? 

Why not consider election results as a call to move toward the center?  Why not ask Democrats to discard their usual instincts for more government?  Why not ask Republicans to arrive at decisions about what might help their constituents, instead of just coming with more “no” answers?

And, why not hope Americans – yes, Americans who vote – will support candidates who hew toward the center where the best solutions lie and not the extremes of the far right or the far left?

Too much to ask?  Probably.  But I hold out hope anyway.

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 needed any more grist for the mill of what you know to be Trump stupidity, you got more from Georgia this week.

There, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, in a new book, detailed former president Trump’s stupidity in a long and rambling phone call early last year as he, Trump, ticked off a host of debunked and fanciful conspiracy theories he blamed for his electoral defeat. 

Hill.com wrote about this in a story under this headline:

Georgia secretary of state:  Trump “had no idea how elections work”

The story started this way:

“Former President Trump demonstrated virtually no knowledge of the conduct of modern elections procedures in a long and rambling phone call with Georgia’s top elections administrator as he ticked off a host of debunked and fanciful conspiracy theories he blamed for his electoral defeat. 

“The man on the other end of that call in early January, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, details months of mistruths and disinformation perpetuated by the Trump campaign.”

The new book that recounts this is called “Integrity Counts,” which by those very words would exclude Trump. 

In the book, there is a roughly 40-page transcript of the call itself, which shows an increasingly agitated Trump grasping at allegations that Raffensperger and his top deputy systematically refute as then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pleaded with the Georgia officials to investigate further and Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to deliver the state’s electoral votes.

Here are examples of how Raffensperger described Trump:

• “Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.  Give me a break.”  “This repeated request for votes,” Raffensperger said,“ showed me that Trump really had no idea how elections work.  The secretary of state’s office doesn’t allocate any votes.”
• “At the time of the call in January, I didn’t know if he believed what he was saying.  I didn’t know if he was trying to push a narrative, or was he just believing stuff that was fed to him.  As a conservative-with-a-capital-C Republican, I’m disappointed like everyone else is. But the cold hard facts are that Trump did come up short in the state of Georgia.” 
• Trump said he had been told that ballots had been cast in the names of as many as 5,000 dead people; Raffensperger’s post-election audit found two people had voted in the names of dead relatives.  Trump alleged 4,925 voters who lived in other states had cast ballots in Georgia; Raffensperger found 300 out-of-state voters. Trump accused Fulton County officials of shredding thousands of ballots; Raffensperger counters that officials in Cobb County shredded blank envelopes, and no ballots. 

“We are a nation of laws; we believe in the rule of law. We have a constitution. We have state laws, we have federal laws,” Raffensperger said.  

Raffensperger, who is up for re-election next year, remains a target for Trump and his acolytes.  

In the hill.com article, Raffensperger declined to say whether he believes Trump is morally fit to be president.

I won’t decline.

He is not morally fit for the nation’s top political job.  Lying is second nature to him.  He rallies folks to believe he is like a god, if not a god, and, thus, deserves to be re-elected, even if it takes violence to achieve that goal.

Perish that prospect as this country heads toward 2024.

NOTE:  At one point after Trump lost the presidential election, I vowed that I would not write again about the buffoon.  Well, I am not keeping that vow; I cannot as Trump heads toward trying to be president again.

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.

To say I am not an expert on the nation’s national pastime – baseball – is an understatement. 

I often don’t watch games until the end of a season, including the World Series.

Still, a column in the Wall Street Journal this morning caught my attention.  By Jason Gay, it appeared under this headline:

Oh Great, Another Cranky Column About Baseball Games Taking Too Long

The headline was referencing Gay’s column.  He has a way with words as he writes about sports for the Journal, often in a satirical style, with a dose of humor thrown in.

Here is the way he started his column:

“Finally, some good news:  Reading this lousy sports column will take 3 hours and 57 or so minutes less time than Sunday’s Game 5 of the World Series.

“That game lasted the routine nine innings. And took a whopping four hours. 

“Now granted, this column is probably about 1/200th as interesting as watching the Astros and Braves play nine. 

“Still, the point remains:

“Baseball’s gotta speed it up.”

I agree.

But, you say, you are a golfer and, so, you know about slow pace-of-play issues. 

Yes.  Golf needs to speed up, too.

In La Quinta, California, where I have the good fortune to play golf in the winter, I play at a course called The Palms.  There, whenever you play, you are given 3 hours and 30 minutes to play 18 holes.  Yes, 3-30!

It works and the play is often more fun because you proceed purposefully.  No need to run.  Just focus on playing.

In his column, Gay adds points worth considering about slow baseball, points including these exaggerations, a brand of Gay’s humor:

• Do you know the slowpoke NFL started and finished an entire Sunday night football contest — Dallas defeated Minnesota — before baseball wrapped it up?
• Did you know Fox announcers Joe Buck and John Smoltz began Game 5 clean shaven and had full speakeasy bartender beards by the end of game?  Do you know A-Rod celebrated two birthdays, and bought and sold and re-bought the T-Wolves?
• The culprit here, largely, is all the pitching changes, abetted by a significant strategic shift:  Starting pitching, as we knew it, is increasingly kaput. 
• To keep a hurler in is to make an opponent comfortable, and chance disaster.  That’s why you get Atlanta’s Ian Anderson pulled while carrying five innings of no-hit ball.
• There’s a longer, fascinating existential conversation here, about baseball’s focus on analytics and efficiency and what it’s done to the game — how pitching by committee and the defensive shifts and the all-or-nothing “launch angle” approach at the plate have conspired to make a game that is smarter and statistically defensible, but aesthetically grim.
• I’m not a hater. I say this as someone who loves a World Series.  I think it can be an incredibly dramatic and compelling television product —t he way games are produced with all the macro and micro camera angles, zipping from the players in the field to close-ups of panicked fans in the stands to managers looking tense — is magical theater.  It just shouldn’t take longer than getting a Ph.D. 

And, to Gay’s “analysis,” I would add this key point:  If you banned baseball players from spitting, often on television, just think about how much time would be saved.

I once conducted by own analysis of this “spitting problem.”  I won’t take time to share my results here, but I would just say ban it and games would be much shorter.

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.

For Oregon, there is little question but that the race for governor here will be the biggest issue on the upcoming primary election ballot – and the following general election.

Expect a barn-burner of a race – and from me, a long-time Oregon lobbyist, expect a Democrat to emerge victorious as he or she takes office at the start of 2023.

Everything else pales in comparison to the high-profile race that, as usual, will pit Democrats against Republicans, but this year will have a high-profile Independent, as well.

More about the governor’s race later in this blog, including a list of those running.  But, first here is recap of other races and issues.

NO STATEWIDE INITIATIVE MEASURES:  This is atypical for Oregon, a state where advocates can get to the ballot with pet issues if they find a way to get enough voter signatures to do so.  None made it this time around.

LOCAL ISSUES WILL BE ON THE BALLOT, WITH A NOD TO OREGON PUBLIC BROADCASTING FOR HELP IN COMING UP WITH THE LIST:   Another county in Oregon will vote on the idea of moving Oregon’s border so rural counties can join “Greater Idaho” (see below).

Voters in Cannon Beach and Newport are being asked to approve a sales tax on restaurant and deli food (again see below).

A recurring theme across the Pacific Northwest this election involves aspects of the tight housing market.  County and city councils up and down the West Coast have wrestled with housing supply and affordability for years.

Now, local activists are going to voters in several places to seek stronger action.  One such place is on the central Oregon Coast and another is in Bellingham, Washington.

A coalition called People First Bellingham took inspiration from Portland to place a tenant rights proposition on the November ballot.  The measure would require landlords to provide re-location assistance equal to three- months rent for renters who are forced to move because of large rent increases — defined as anything more than 8 per cent.  

SHORT-TERM VACATION RENTALS TARGETED:  Voters on the central Oregon Coast will also get to weigh in on rental housing, but from a different angle. A group named 15 Neighborhoods collected signatures to put a five-year phase-out of short-term vacation rentals on the November ballot.  It would affect AirBnb and VRBO-type rentals in single-family residential zones of unincorporated Lincoln County.

GREATER IDAHO:  The group Move Oregon’s Border has been collecting signatures in multiple counties to allow more voters to weigh in on nonbinding initiatives to create the expanded state of “Greater Idaho.” Oregon’s sparsely-populated Harney County gets its turn to sound off at the ballot box next week.  Crook and Klamath counties, and possibly others, are in line to vote in spring 2022.

The border relocation idea is driven by conservatives who believe Eastern and Southern Oregon counties would be happier in red Idaho than stuck in blue Oregon. Nine counties have already voted on the Move Oregon’s Border proposal during prior elections, yielding seven victories and two rejections.

PREPARED FOOD TAX:  Oregon has no state sales tax, but diners in the popular beach towns of Cannon Beach and Newport may find one added to their tabs when they eat in restaurants or get takeout beginning next year.  Local voters will decide whether to fund a new city hall and police station in Cannon Beach by imposing a 5 per cent tax on prepared food. The same new tax would be used to hire additional police, fire and library staff in Newport.

Now, back to the Oregon governor’s race.

One of the earliest to file was current Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek, who appears to have a good chance to get most of the public employee union money to fund her race. 

Current Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read entered the race and could have a chance to garner votes from the left center of the political spectrum since he is not as far left as most other Democrats.

Two more filings create added interest in the race.

• Democrat State Senator Betsy Johnson filed, but will run as an Independent, which means that she moves directly to the general election, by passing the primary.

• Former New York Times reporter and columnist Nicholas Kristof filed, saying he will return to his Yamhill County home to run, though he will face questions about whether he meets residency requirements and, if the answer is yes, he will face carpet-bagger allegations on the campaign trail.

Six other Democrats have announced or filed to run:

+  Wilson Bright, a retired textile business owner from Portland

+  Peter Hall, a Haines city council member

+  Casey Kulla, a farmer and Yamhill County commissioner from Dayton

+  Dave Lavinsky, a business and strategic advisor from Bend

+  Keisha Merchant, an artist from Albany

+  Michael Trimble, a customer service representative from Portland

A couple other Ds may file, including Multnomah County Commission Chair Deborah Kafoury and State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

On the Republican side, it is unlikely that any of the announced candidates will pull enough weight to counter the Democrat voter registration and money edges, especially in urban Oregon.  That includes Salem physician Bud Pierce who lost last time around to the current term-limited governor, Kate Brown.  Pierce has a bit of name familiarity, but much of it resides in Marion County, not statewide.

So, count on a Democrat to win the state’s highest political office again.  It has been true since the last Republican governor in Oregon, Vic Atiyeh, who served more than 35 years ago.

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.

Back when I served in a leadership capacity as a Governing Board member at Salem Alliance Church here in Salem, Oregon, we made a critical decision.

It was this:  We declined to allow politics to infect the church.   Rather, we contended, church should be about God and the role of his son, Jesus, in our lives.

It should not be about politics.

Put another way, we declined to allow the church to become just another political organization, thus perverting its real purpose.

Peter Wehner, writing for Atlantic Magazine, produced an excellent piece this week on the subject of the evangelical church and its erosion into politics.  The article appeared under this headline:

THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH IS BREAKING APART: Christians must reclaim Jesus from his church

Wehner, a a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues, often for Atlantic Magazine.  He also is the author of a book, The Death of Politics:  How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

Here is the way he started his piece:

“The election of the elders of an evangelical church is usually an uncontroversial, even unifying event.  But this summer, at an influential megachurch in Northern Virginia, something went badly wrong. A trio of elders didn’t receive 75 per cent of the vote, the threshold necessary to be installed.

“A small group of people, inside and outside this church, coordinated a divisive effort to use disinformation in order to persuade others to vote these men down as part of a broader effort to take control of this church.”

Why?

Apparently, church members had been misled, having been told, among other things, that the three individuals nominated to be elders would advocate selling the church building to Muslims, who would convert it into a mosque.  In a second vote on July 18, all three nominees cleared the threshold.  But that hardly resolved the conflict.  Members of the church filed a lawsuit, claiming that the conduct of the election violated the church’s constitution.

Beyond the election, the church’s pastor had been accused of proposing “wokeness” and pushing a “social justice agenda” from the left of center.  Not clear whether the pastor did or didn’t do this, but the allegation was enough to bring down the church.

According to Wehner’s report, what happened in this church is happening all over the evangelical world.  The account above simply serves as an anecdote to describe an infection – the church becoming political.

For my part, at Salem Alliance, now about 20 years ago, my colleagues and I experienced advocacy for political activity.  In one case, we faced a demand to give sermons against abortion from a right-side political point-of-view.  In another case, we were asked to develop a list of positions on political issues for the church to espouse.

We did neither.

Now, surely, when it comes to an issue such as abortion, there is scriptural advice on the subject, but we preferred to allow that advice to be individual in nature, not a collective admonition on one side or the other.

At any rate, buoyed by Wehner’s article, I developed list of what ails churches today when political action becomes an overriding objective, not honoring Jesus.  [The quote marks below indicate that I drew material from Wehner’s article, though I did not necessarily use the individual names of sources to whom he talked, believing it was enough to attribute words to Wehner.  He serves credit for sparking my thinking.]

AGGRESSIVE POLITICS FOMENTED BY THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: The aggressive, disruptive, and unforgiving mindset that characterizes so much of our politics has found a home in many American churches.  The religious right is to blame for much of the intrusion.

“The coronavirus pandemic, of course, has placed religious communities under extraordinary strain.  Everyone in America has felt its effects; for many Christians, it’s been a bar to gathering and worshipping together, sharing communion and performing baptisms, and saying common prayers and participating in rituals and liturgy.  Not being in community destabilized what has long been a core sense of Christian identity.

“But there’s more to the fractures than just COVID-19.  After all, many of the forces that are splitting churches were in motion well before the pandemic hit.  The pandemic exposed and exacerbated weaknesses and vulnerabilities, habits of mind and heart, that already existed.”

The root of the discord, Wehner writes, lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of culture and politics.  Churches become repositories, not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are made sacred.  

THEN CAME DONALD TRUMP: The first step was the cultivation of the idea within the religious right that certain political positions were deeply Christian when, in fact, they were not.

Then came Trump.

What he did – and wants to continue to do – is to advocate hatred and resentment as the best approach, including for many who profess to be Christians.  For these people, Trump is close to a god.

“The dominance of political religion over professed religion is seen in how, for many, the loyalty to Trump became blind allegiance.  The result is that many Christian followers of Trump have come to see a gospel of hatred, resentment, vilification, put-downs, and insults as expressions of their Christianity.”

THE CHURCH AS ENTERTAINMENT, NOT BIBLE TEACHING:  On another side, many churches aren’t interested in Biblical teaching at all. They focus instead on entertainment, because entertainment is what keeps people in their seats and coins in the offering plate.

Further, many people rely on the media as source for teaching.  They consume media, or rather the media consumes them, and Biblical teaching ends up in second place.

“When people’s values are shaped by the media they consume, rather than by their religious leaders and communities,” Wehner says, “there are consequences.

“The media want is engagement, and, for purveyors of media messages, engagement is most reliably driven by anger and hatred.  And so hatred migrates into the church, which doesn’t always have the resources to resist it.”

Teaching people how to think biblically would help, as well as teaching people how to disagree with one another according to Biblical standards, Wehner writes.  There is a lot of disagreement in the New Testament, and it gives us a template for how to listen to each other to understand rather than just to argue.  Note the word listen.

FOCUSING ON POLITICS PROMPTS CHURCHES TO ILLUSTRATE THE SAME TRAIT THAT MARKS POLITICS – LACK OF CIVIILITY:  Many Christians are not inclined to heed calls for civility.  They feel that everything they value is under assault, and that they need to fight to protect it.

Trump made aggressive name-calling, cruelty and derogation the norm.  Through him, we saw the once-shocking seem routine; we saw anything short of personal cruelty to be a sign of weakness. 

THE ROLE OF THE SOUTH:  And then there is a regional component to the crisis of evangelical Christianity.

Some of the distinctive cultural forms present in the American South—masculinity and male dominance, tribal loyalties, obedience and intolerance, and even the ideology of white supremacism—have spread to other parts of the country and, in fact, to the church. 

Look only so far as the dissension Trump spread in Charlottesville and in the January 6 insurrection.  Many of those involved came from churches to do Trump’s bidding.

IT’S TIME FOR THE CHURCH TO RECLAIM JESUS:  Jesus now has to be reclaimed from “His” church, from those who pretend to speak most authoritatively in his name, but don’t.

Too many Christians resist Jesus call radically to rethink attitudes toward power, ourselves, and others, especially the poor and down-trodden, including immigrants.

“Unlike in the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan—unlike Jesus’s barrier-breaking encounters with prostitutes and Roman collaborators, with the lowly and despised, with the unclean and those on the wrong side of the “holiness code,” with the wounded souls whom he healed on the Sabbath—many Christians today see the world divided between us and them, the children of light and the children of darkness. 

“For many of us who have made Christianity central to our lives, the pain of this moment is watching those who claim to follow Jesus do so much to distort who He really was. “

Even as politics threatens the church, it also is important to note countless acts of kindness, generosity, and self-giving love that are performed every day by people precisely because they are Christians and, in fact, are part of a church.  Their lives have been changed, and in some cases transformed, by their faith.

So, all is not lost for churches and for their real members.

Here in Salem, for example, I see kindness and generosity in the way many individuals have rallied around refugees, including recent ones from Afghanistan who are being re-settled in Salem.

Wehner concludes:  “Something has gone amiss.  The Jesus of the Gospels—the Jesus who won their hearts, and who long ago won mine—needs to be reclaimed.”

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 are a political junkie like me, you don’t have to wait many moments each day before you hear whether there is a chance for bi-partisan action on issues in Congress.

At one moment, the headline will be that President Joe Biden is failing to do what he said he would do when he became president, which is to find middle ground on taxes, spending, infrastructure, and social issues.

At the next moment, you’ll hear about the fact that Democrats in Congress can’t reach agreement on anything to help “their president” gain any victory.

And, at the next moment, you’ll note that Republicans in Congress have no interest in getting anything done – they just want to oppose Biden and Democrats at every step.

Then, lurking in the background – sometimes in the foreground where he would rather be – is former president Donald Trump as he angles for the Oval Office again, despite the graphic inability he displayed to grasp anything about the role of president when he had the job for a disastrous four years.

All of this calls to mind for me the difficulty to reach consensus on any tough political issue.  Of course, my arena was different than Washington, D.C.  – it was at the Legislature in Salem, Oregon, where I worked for about 25 years as a lobbyist.  I dealt with the 90 lawmakers, as well as statewide elected officials, including the governor.

I learned a few lessons from the experience, so I summarize them here.

• Finding middle ground takes hard work.  Success doesn’t happen overnight or without a lot of meetings.

• Finding middle ground requires the ability to “give” and to “get.”  That’s what compromise is – giving and getting — with a result no one may like, but which serves the common good.

• Finding middle ground requires a commitment to avoid caring about who gets credit for good work, a tough act in today’s political landscape where credit or debit appears to be the main goal.

Example:  The last Republican Governor in Oregon, Vic Atiyeh, provides the best example of someone in politics who didn’t care who got credit for positive actions.  He just wanted the positive actions themselves.  It was a pleasure for me to work with and for him, now many years ago.  But I still remember his “I don’t care who gets the credit” example.

• Finding middle ground requires those looking for it to be able to recognize it when they find it.  They need to keep in mind the notion that agreement on public policy matters, not just personal, client or party beliefs.

• 
  Finding middle round requires leaders and followers.  If a leader displays leadership traits – traits such as honesty, forthrightness, transparency, ability to see the big picture – then following is required.  Not everyone can lead; some must follow.

Example:  Over my years as a lobbyist in Oregon, the best example of leadership was Senator Neil Bryant, a Republican from Bend.  When there were tough issues at the Capitol – when divergent interests had to be brought together to find common ground – Bryant usually got the assignment.

I often have said that “you know political leadership when you see it,” not when someone touts that they have it.  With Bryant, you saw it.  The good news is that he remains a good friend today.

Would commitments such as those listed above produce agreement in Washington, D.C.?  Who knows?  Probably not, with all sides so pitted against each other.  But, it strikes me it would be worth trying.

Too much is at stake for the reverse to occur – doing nothing as disagreement and dissension controls.  Plus, on many days, it appears to me that the very basis of our democracy is at stake as Members of Congress and the president are so far apart.

So, middle ground calls.

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 will probably be the first of several blogs on the upcoming election for Oregon’s new governor……….

Complicated.

Unusual.

Exciting.  (Well, for this to be true, you would have to be a political junkie.)

I have heard all those words used to describe the race for governor next time around here in Oregon.

The incumbent, Kate Brown, is term-limited and, thus, cannot run again, so many political observers believe the field is wide open.

Recent results underline the prospects:

• Betsy Johnson, a Democrat, entered the race a couple weeks ago, but will run as an Independent.  That means she’ll bypass the May primary and go directly to the November general election ballot if she can submit 23,744 valid signatures supporting her entry into the race.  
• Tobias Read, current Oregon State Treasurer, is a former Democrat representative from Beaverton and has wanted to run for the state’s top political jobs for years.  Term limited as State Treasurer, now is the time.
• Tina Kotek, Democrat and current Oregon House Speaker, has made no secret she has intended to run for higher political office after serving as Speaker since 2013.  The only question was whether she would seek the governor’s office or a seat in Congress.  It’s the governor’s office.
• Nicholas Kristof, a former Oregon resident, has now moved back to Oregon to have a chance to run.  He has not filed yet, but probably will do so, though he risks getting a carpet-bagger label.  He has worked for the New York Times for many years, making a name for himself with two Pulitzer Prizes and many well-written columns.
• Bud Pierce, a Republican, ran and lost against Brown last time around.  He is the only Republican entrant so far who has any name recognition, but what the notiriety he has works better in Salem than anywhere else in the state, so it is very unlikely he will win.

Political junkies are wondering if other candidates will surface, including Multnomah County Commission Chair Deborah Kafoury or Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.  Both are reported to have taken soundings about the race.  A wild card is current Secretary of State Shemia Fagan who is in the first half of her first term, so some suggest she should not depart the Secretary of State Office so early.

Here is the way my former colleagues in my lobbying and PR firm, CFM Advocates, wrote about the race this week.

“The open 2022 Oregon gubernatorial race took a turn toward unconventional as Democrat Senator Betsy Johnson announced her candidacy as an independent and Nicholas Kristof resigned as a New York Times columnist to run as a Democrat.

“Johnson unconventionally announced her candidacy in an email:  Having to choose between another left-wing liberal promising more of the same or a right-wing Trump apologist is no choice at all. Oregonians deserve better than the excesses and nonsense of the extreme left and radical right.

“That’s why I have decided to run for governor as an independent leader unaffiliated with any party and loyal only to the people of Oregon.”

Johnson’s quote above strikes me as worth noting…if only because I agree with it.

“Having to choose between another left-wing liberal promising more of the same or a right-wing Trump apologist is no choice at all.  Oregonians deserve better than the excesses and nonsense of the extreme left and radical right.”

Ditto for me.

I also applaud the candidacy of Oregon State Treasurer Read whom I have known since I lobbied him when he served in the Oregon House.  He has put together a centrist political point-of-view, perhaps a bit left of center to be sure, but not radically so. 

As a centrist Democrat, he may have the wherewithal to build a tent big enough to encompass many of those who have grown weary of the controversial state of the current political landscape in Oregon.  With so much dissension, there is little chance for solutions to emerge from the middle – and that is where Read could lead.

With Johnson’s entry into the campaign, he’ll face some competition for the middle.

Both Johnson and Read – and probably anyone else who enters the race – will have to contend with a huge outlay of public employee union money, which is involved in any race for governor.  Most of the money will likely go to Kotek.

There is a long time between now and the election next November, though the primary, of course, is only months away.  Huge issues can emerge along the way, and, in any event, it is too early for anyone except political junkies like myself to think about elections.

There has not been a Republican governor in Oregon for more than 35 years.  I had the privilege to work for the last one, Vic Atiyeh.

Given the number of votes in urban Oregon – mostly Democrats — any Republican has a steep hill to climb.

One of the last to try with a modicum of success was Chris Dudley, who played for the Portland Trail Blazers, ran a well-financed, credible campaign in 2010, but then came up short against John Kitzhaber by less than 2 percentage points.

It is noteworthy to report that Dudley won 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties, but could not surpass Kitzhaber’s lead in urban areas, especially Portland, which illustrates the challenge for Republicans – or moderates, for that matter.

And that underlines one of the major issues any new governor will face or should face on the campaign trail, which is how to bridge the divide in what has been called “the two Oregons” – urban and rural.  There may even be a third rail these days – suburban Oregon.

Here’s hoping that the “two or three Oregons” issue will come up during the primary campaign, so those who compete for votes can discuss how to bring Oregonians together for the good of the state, a tall order.

Fat chance, you may say.  But, I prefer to hold out hope until I see either victory or defeat.

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.

More people than ever accessed end-of-life drugs and used them in the year 2020.

So says the Oregonian newspaper in a story yesterday that appeared under this headline:

Why more Oregonians took their lives through Death with Dignity in 2020 than any other year

The story started this way:

“Most people struggling through the final stages of a terminal illness have one choice:  Wait for the disease to play out and kill them, no matter how gruesome or painful.

“For more than two decades, Oregonians have been able to choose a different path.

“Beginning in 1998, the Death with Dignity Act has allowed Oregonians who meet certain conditions to receive prescription medications to help them end their life.  From its inception through 2020, 2,895 people have used the act to get prescriptions, and 1,905 have used those drugs to die.

“Last year, a record 370 people received prescriptions under the Death with Dignity Act, according to data compiled by the Oregon Health Authority, up 25 per cent from 2019.  Of those, 245 died by ingesting prescribed medications, an increase of 28 per cent from the previous year.”

All of this recalled a tough period for me and my firm, CFM Strategic Communications. 

In 1994, we ran the first campaign against an assisted suicide initiative.  But we lost, by a 51 to 49 per cent vote in favor of installing a new law in Oregon.

It stood then as the only assisted suicide law among the 50 states, though since 1994, nine other states have joined the ranks of those permitting the practice. 

Back in 1994, given the controversial and emotional character of the new law, the Oregon Legislature, in an almost-unprecedented decision voted to send the law back out to the people for another vote.  My firm was not involved in the campaign this time.

It passed by a resounding 60 to 40 per cent margin.

What that meant then – and what the new statistics mean today – is that Oregonians are decidedly more comfortable with what has come to be labeled “death with dignity.”

Here is how the Oregonian put it, using words from one of its sources:

“For over 20 years, Oregonian’s Death with Dignity Act has not only provided those facing a terminal illness the ability to avoid unnecessary suffering.  It has also opened the door to more open and honest conversations about each of our wishes at the end of life.

“The result has been increased use of hospice services, better symptom management and a culture that places value on the wishes of dying individuals.”

So, why has the number of those using assisted suicide spiked upward in 2020?

It’s part of a change in the law.

Generally, people who request end-of-life medications must wait 15 days between the first oral request and the second, but new rules allow people with less than 15 days to live to be exempted from that rule.  Also, people with less than 48 hours to live no longer must wait 48 hours between their written request and the writing of the actual prescription.  A doctor must officially confirm the patient’s death is imminent if he or she does not complete the waiting periods.

“In 2020, there were 73 more prescriptions written than in 2019,” according to the agency in charge of charting use of the law, the Oregon Health Authority. “There were also 75 patients who were granted exemptions from the waiting periods.”

Those are patients who presumably wouldn’t have qualified for assisted suicide before 2020.

So, in the last 25 years so, have I changed my view of assisted suicide?  Good question.  I am tempted to say “yes” and “no.”

The “yes” is that there clearly are cases where an individual should be in charge of their own life and when it should end, given huge and untreatable diseases that rack the body and the mind.

In the early years of the new law in Oregon, a critical component was that the individual had to be able to take and ingest pills on their own, without help from anyone else.  That isstill be the case, but the waiting periods, as described above, have changed.

My “no” answer is that it always is very difficult to pass a law directing personal behavior when the law applies to everyone and to every circumstance.  Better, if it were possible, to design individual specifics to fit individual circumstances.  Of course, it’s not.

So, overall and on balance, I end up being relatively comfortable with Oregon’s law, which does not give wholesale permission for assisted suicide, but regulates the process effectively.  The last 25 years have proved that point.