PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

What a name — “The Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?”

What is it?  Well, it is a golf course cut out of the beach grasses on the Southern Oregon coast that, for a golfer, is unlike anything else you might have played.

I was reminded of all this when I read an on-line story from Links Magazine under the headline, “What’s Next for the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?”

I’ll reprint excerpts of the story below because I could not do justice to the report on my own.

But, before that, I will recount a treasured personal memory.

A few of us got access to the Sheep Ranch about 10 years ago or so when our excellent home course superintendent, Bill Swancutt, used his connections to get us a “tee time.” That phrase – “tee time” might be stretching it a bit.

Four of us got into one car for the four-and-one-half hour drive south from Salem to the Bandon area. Rather than going straight to the Bandon Dunes Resort, we took a turn – only Swanny would know where that turn was – into the “Sheep Ranch.”

There were four of us, but I only remember three – Swanny, my late friend Dick Rowell, and me. [The late Dick Rowell was one of my best friends, a linkage – pardon the play on words — which we forged on the golf course at our home track, Illahe Hills, in Salem. Sadly, Dick suffered from chronic depression and, while many of us tried to help him, we failed in the end when he took his own life. Our trip to the Sheep Ranch is one among many great memories of Dick.]

Back to my story.

At the Sheep Ranch, we parked our vehicle near the Sheep Ranch (there was no parking lot) and we entered through a make-shift gate. Before long, as he came out from behind a hill, we met the “superintendent” of the course. He may have been the same one as is mentioned in the Links Magazine story — Greg Harless, most commonly referred to as the course’s “caretaker.”

We introduced ourselves, said how happy we were to be playing “his course,” and asked for his summary of what to expect and how to play course.

Before he said much, he offered this comment, with tongue firmly planted in cheek – “I have one of the best jobs in the world. I am a golf course superintendent without many golfers on my track.”

Yet, here we were, ready for a unusual, but great, round of golf and, as they would say at Bandon Dunes, play “golf as it was meant to be played.”

The super stood with us on a promontory overlooking about a quarter-mile of land before the Pacific Ocean. Pointing West, he said, “there, that’s the course.”

We looked in that direction and, with concentration, could make out, even with just a bit of fog, 18 pins with red flags on what looked, from afar, like 18 greens.

He pulled out a piece of scratch paper and scrawled out, with his own hand, a routing for about 12 or 13 holes. Then said, follow that if you want, but if not, make up your own itinerary. Plus, he said, we’d have to do so anyway to get in the last five or six holes.

After playing one hole, “just find a piece of flat found near a green, and flail away from there toward what you want to be the next hole.”

Distance markers? No. Tee boxes? No. Manicured grass? No.

Just golf “as it was meant to be.”

The super left us and we headed out, traversing in all directions for 18 holes, seemingly without a care in the world.

Here are a few excerpts from the Links Magazine article:

• It has become decreasingly mysterious with every passing article—and there have been many—but the Sheep Ranch still possesses sufficient intrigue and anonymity to ensure the golfer recounting his experiences of the place speaks mostly to a hushed audience. Images and stories have been filtering through for nearly two decades, and its 200 or so rugged, cliff-top acres are clearly visible on Google Earth. But he who is lucky enough to have walked his own undefined route across this stretch of links-land has a story few of his friends can ever match.
• Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch appeared in 2001 about the time Tom Doak was putting the finishing touches to Pacific Dunes, the second course at Mike Keiser’s implausible, yet hugely successful, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the Oregon coast.
• The land on which it sits, site of a former wind farm, came up for sale shortly after the resort opened in 1999. Phil Friedmann, co-creator of the greetings card company that made him and Keiser wealthy, had decided against becoming a partner in Bandon Dunes, thinking Keiser’s plan unlikely to succeed, but did go in with him on this new parcel splitting the $4 million asking price down the middle.
• To be one of the 50-100 golfers per month who take advantage of the opportunity to explore this Shangri-La, you need to speak with Greg Harless, the superintendent but most commonly referred to as the course’s “caretaker.” Harless cuts the greens fairly regularly and keeps the fairways in check (because there is only basic irrigation surrounding the greens, the course closes in summer when the fairways become excessively dry), but that’s about as far as the maintenance operation goes.
• You can play A to B to C to and so on, but the routing is merely a suggestion. Some like to string the F, J, E, C, B, and M greens together to create a stirring sequence of cliff-top holes. The massive E green, covering 20,000 square feet of ground at the course’s western-most point, is the most fortuitously-positioned.

It took us about five hours to make our way around “our 18 holes.” It was great fun – because of the lay of the land, because of the commitment to feel the uneven ground on your feet, because of the makeshift character of finding an 18-hole routing, and because of the personal bonds between and among friends that will last a lifetime.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Back in the day, when I was hiring for positions in state government or in my firm, CFM Strategic Communications, one of the most important questions for me was this: Can you write, and if so, prove it.

I remember asking this question and even subjecting applicants to a writing test to assure that, if they said they could write, they could. It was a way to test their perceptions about their own skills.

But, to mimic the headline in this blog, what comes first – clear writing or clear thinking?

For me, it would be that clear writing indicates an ability to think clearly. So writing is first.

For two writers of letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, it was the reverse. The two letters appeared under the headline:

Clear Thought, Practice Yield Clear Writing

American students begin their higher education with poor writing abilities and are seldom given reason to improve them.

In one letter, a writer from Annapolis, Maryland, said this:

“It is disheartening that college readiness in math fell to its lowest level since 2004, but I am baffled by the absence of interest in crumbling writing skills. When writing was introduced to the ACT college-entrance exam in 2006, the average score was 7.7. It then fell. Now, the writing test is optional, and the average score isn’t reported, perhaps to save everyone embarrassment. The optional essay-writing section of the SAT is required by a declining number of colleges.

“So American students begin their higher education with poor writing abilities and are seldom given reason to improve them. Few universities concern themselves with teaching practical writing skills for the workplace. Poor writing skills have been identified as the biggest disconnect between academia and what employers need, in some cases desperately. Our digital age doesn’t reduce the need for well-written, everyday communication, ranging from customer correspondence to marketing materials to presentations.

“The Center for Plain Language, which pushes federal agencies to write more clearly and usefully, just gave them an average grade of C, down from B.

“Should we care the about quality of writing? How can we not?”

A second letter writer from Phoenix, Arizona said this:

“When I taught journalism lab classes for a professor at Arizona State University, I spent the first two weeks teaching students the difference between ‘they’re,’ ‘their’ and ‘there,’ as well as when and why to use apostrophes.

“School districts in many states, including Arizona, scream about higher pay for teachers and wave their banners as they beg for more money. Your article and my experience show that most teachers lack the ability to teach students what they need to know to pass the ACT or SAT, probably because the teachers were never taught. We baby boomers were probably the last generation to receive a really good education.”

So, which comes first – clear writing or clear thinking? Well, in many ways, it doesn’t matter.

Write clearly to indicate your ability to think clearly.  Or think clearly, then illustrate your ability to write clearly.

Have it both ways!

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

This is one of three departments I run with a completely free hand to do what needs to be done.  No one tells me what to do or what to include.  So, I am not just a director — I am a dictator.

From a Wall Street Journal editorial on a one-party (Democrat) state – New York: “The two Democrats (U.S. Senator Kristin Gillibrand and Governor Andrew Cuomo) can get away withdisdain for democracy because New York is increasingly a one-party state in which Republicans can’t win statewide. This is partly a result of a GOP majority in the state Senate that has failed to offer much of an alternative to liberal governance. But even that restraint in Albany is likely to vanish this year as Democrats expect to control every branch of government. Politicians aren’t more accountable when they face no significant opposition.”

Comment: In some ways, this sounds like a bit like Oregon where Democrats control almost everything. There is one Republican statewide officer holder, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson. And Republicans haven’t won the governorship for more than 35 years, dating back to the governor for whom I worked – Vic Atiyeh.

From Hugh Hewitt in the Washington Post: “The framers intended political disputes to be settled in and by Congress and the president — elected officials who could be replaced. Now, perhaps — hopefully — a new era of judicial modesty is opening. The court should retreat from absurdly insisting on creating a perfect society with measured and judicially mandated outcomes, ‘scientific’ precision, balancing tests and invented doctrines, all administered by federal judges. The justices should stop ‘judicializing’ politics and insist that, if the political branches do not resolve a controversy, that controversy will not be resolved.

“The court should neither ‘hurry up’ nor obstruct social change. It should not try to redirect or dam the mighty river ‘Culture,’ and it should cease trying to vacuum away the delicate compromises local, state and national legislators make between the deeply felt religious beliefs of a vast and diverse people. Rather, it should read closely the laws that Congress passes, hold them up to the Constitution’s guarantees and refuse the efforts of elected officials to punt power to bureaucracies.”

Comment: Hewitt makes a good case for a conservative court – one that, as put by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robers, serves as an umpire, not one of the players.

From Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post: “Democrats have seized on recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) in a round of media interviews after the Treasury Department reported that the federal budget deficit increased 17 per cent year over year, to $779 billion in fiscal 2018.

“’It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,’ McConnell told Bloomberg News on October 16 when asked about the deficit announcement. ‘It’s a bi-partisan problem: Unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future.”

“He added that by ‘entitlement reform,’ he was ‘talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.’

“Cue the immediate outrage from the left.

“’If Republicans retain the Senate they will do everything they can to take away families’ health care and raise their costs,’ Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said in a statement. ‘Americans should take Senator McConnell at his word.’

“Okay, these are the usual kind of scare tactics used by politicians on both sides to warn of looming program cuts if the other side’s proposals are adopted. Not just ‘cuts,’ but actual elimination of three popular programs.

“That’s not what McConnell said. In fact, he did not even say the Republicans hoped to cut those programs. He said changes would happen only if both parties worked together to overhaul the programs, which are under financial stress because of the retirement of the baby-boom generation.”

Comment: This is another case of Democrats being Democrats. They cannot seem to understand that it is possible that, even though Republicans are in charge, they might want to work Democrats on consensus solutions.

From Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal: “The Democrats reduced all the complexities of a Supreme Court nomination to mandatory expressions of sympathy for a human tragedy. For many Americans, as summarized on the Senate floor by Senator Susan Collins, the Democratic effort to force her and the rest of the country into making this impossible Sophie’s Choice was just too much. Due process still matters.

“The left’s reductionist Kavanaugh strategy enraged and energized a sleepy Republican electorate, whose interest in the midterms now effectively matches the Democrats.’”

Comment: We’ll see in a week or so, but the Democrats’ strategy on Kavanaugh, as if there was a strategy, not just Democrats trying to be quotable, may still come back to haunt them.

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal: “Everyone running for office should admit things have gotten too hot, too divided. Then they should try to cool the atmosphere. Next Tuesday will mark one week before the election. Candidates should devote the day to something different. It would be good to see every one give a speech or statement containing their most generous definition of the aims and meaning of the opposing party. A Democratic nominee might say, ‘Whether they always succeed or not, Republicans do want to protect the liberties that have allowed this nation become the miracle of the world.’ A Republican might say, ‘At its best and most sincere, the Democratic Party hopes to help those in peril, and to soften disparities of wealth and opportunity.’”

Comment: Great idea, Peggy Noonan. If candidates on both sides would deign to say nice things about the opponent – not just negative broadsides – we’d be ahead in this country. Fat chance! I know it won’t happen, but, if it did, I’d be interested in all the comments.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

This blog could signal the opening of one of the departments I run with a free hand to make the management decisions I feel need to be made – the Department of Pet Peeves.

But this time, I prefer to give the issue standing on its own.

It deals with a classic example of when state laws are ignored because legislators and advocates – either or both – want them to be ignored. Or, if not totally ignored, to be rendered useless.

One of the best examples, for me, revolves around health insurance issues. Know this – I was a health insurance lobbyist for about 25 years, so I carry a substantial bias.

There is an existing state law that requires a cost-benefit study before – yes, before – the legislature can enact any new health insurance mandate.

Here is a text of the law in ORS 171.875:

The law “requires that every proposed legislative measure containing health insurance coverage mandates to be accompanied by a report that assesses both the social and financial effects of the coverage. Areas that must be addressed in this report include the following:

• “The extent to which treatment or service will be used in Oregon;
• “The extent of coverage already available in Oregon;
• “The proportion of Oregonians who already have such coverage;
• “The extent to which lack of coverage results in financial hardship in Oregon;
• “Evidence of medical need in Oregon for the proposed treatment or services; and
• “The financial effect of the proposed measure, including the increase/decrease of costs of treatment, the extent to which coverage will increase treatment, the extent to which mandated treatment is expected to be a substitute for more expensive treatment, the impact on administrative expenses of the insurer and premiums/administrative expenses of policyholders and the overall impact on total cost of health care.”

This is a law that I found was seldom enforced. And, if it was enforced, few of those involved saw the reports to verify the enforcement.

Instead, what ruled the day was that legislators and advocates believed that enacting a mandate was the most important objective – more important than a state law requiring the cost-benefit study before doing so.

I remember one case that stood out more than many of the rest. I cannot remember for sure, but it was either a mandate to require health insurance companies to contract with a specific hospital in Portland – one that, in fact, no longer exists – or it was a mandate to require insurers to contract with every podiatrist in the state.

With other health insurance lobbyists, I tried to fight off the mandate as not being in the best interest of Oregonians, either from a medical treatment standpoints or from a financial perspectives.

Here was the rub. The lobbyist for the special hospital or the podiatrists – he was one and the same — actually drafted the report that was meant to comply with ORS 171.175. It was not drafted by a legislative staff member; it was drafted by the lobbyist himself.

That was deemed to be compliance with a law that should have held more standing. After all, law is the law – or it is supposed to be so. But, for me, it stood out as a perversion of the law.

There was good news in the end. Health insurance lobbyists managed to kill the mandate despite the superficial cost-benefit analysis.

My point is that legislators, if they pass a law, ought to be required to live within both the letter and the spirit of the law. If not, why have the law in the first place. In health insurance, some mandates are worth implementing, but only after thoughtful and careful review, not just because the politics favors it.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

It will not be a surprise to readers of this blog to hear me say that one of my favorite columnists is Peggy Noonan, who honed her skills writing speeches for former president George Bush.

She had been absent from the Wall Street Journal for some weeks, but the good news is that she returned to her post just in time to provide excellent analysis of the battle over Brett Kvanaugh’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In particular, Noonan gave plaudits to Senator Susan Collins, Republican from Maine, who was in the eye of the storm in the Kavanaugh circus – to mix metaphors. Collins came in for severe criticism from the left when she announced that, on the merits, she would vote for Kavanaugh.

On October 11, Noonan’s piece appeared under this headline:

Voices of Reason—and Unreason

Susan Collins put on a clinic in thoroughness and justice. Democrats need to stand up to the screamers.

Then Noonan went on:

“What did the Kavanaugh controversy tell us about our historical moment? It underscored what we already know, that America is politically and culturally divided and that activists and the two parties don’t just disagree with but dislike and distrust each other.

“We know also the Supreme Court has come to be seen not only as a constitutional (and inevitably political) body but as a cultural body. It follows cultural currents, moods, assumptions. It has frequently brushed past the concept of democratic modesty to make decisions that would most peacefully be left to the people, at the ballot box, after national debate.

“So citizens will experience the court as having great power over their lives, and nominations to the court will inevitably draw passion. And this was a fifth conservative seat on a nine-person court.”

The Kavanaugh hearings, Noonan averred, contained some new elements.

“There were no boundaries on inquiry, no bowing to the idea of a private self. Accusations were made about the wording of captions under yearbook photos. The Senate showed a decline in public standards of decorum. A significant number of senators no longer even pretend to have class or imitate fairness. The screaming from the first seconds of the first hearings, the coordinated interruptions, the insistent rudeness and accusatory tones—none of it looked like the workings of the ordered democracy that has been the envy of the world.

“Two Republican senators this week wrote to me with a sound of mourning. One found it ‘amazing’ and ‘terrifying’ that ‘seemingly, and without very much thought, nearly half the United States Senate has abandoned the presumption of innocence in this country, all to achieve a political goal.’ The other cited ‘a truly disturbing result: One of the great political parties abandoning the Constitutionally-based traditions of due process and presumption of innocence.’

“At the very least, Senate Democrats overplayed their hand. “

As for Collins, Noonan said she “redeemed the situation.”

“In her remarks announcing her vote, she showed a wholly unusual respect for the American people, and for the Senate itself, by actually explaining her thinking. Under intense pressure, her remarks were not about her emotions. She weighed the evidence, in contrast, say, to Senator Cory Booker, who attempted to derail the hearings from the start and along the way compared himself to Spartacus. Though Spartacus was a hero, not a malignant buffoon.

“She (Collins) judged him (Kavanaugh) as centrist in his views and well within the mainstream of judicial thought. He believes the idea of precedent is not only a practice or tradition, but a tenet rooted in the Constitution.

“It (the Collins speech) was a master class in what a friend called ‘old-style thoroughness combined with a feeling for justice.’”

So, kudos to Collins for conducting herself with reason and skill. And kudos to Noonan for returning to her commentator position to provide reason – instead of, as she says, “unreason.”

We need more people of the stature of Collins and Noonan to be involved in our political life.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

In addition to what the preamble describes as my interest in golf, I also have had an affinity over the years for the golf commentating business on TV.

One of the best, Johnny Miller, is calling it quits soon. He’ll be replaced in the top commentating spot at NBC by Paul Azinger. For me, this is good news because Azinger already has made a name for himself on other networks, including Fox and ESPN.

Now he’ll get to join host Dan Hicks on NBC golf broadcasts.

Why do I pay attention to this? Well, one reason, I suppose, is that, in retirement, I don’t have much else to do.

But, more substantively, those who call golf on TV can make the experience enjoyable for a fan like me. Or, by over-talking, they can make the experience tedious.

Over the years, Miller, a great golfer in his own right, made a name for himself by not fawning over golfers, however good they appear to be on TV. He irritated some of them by calling out their faults, or suggesting that they were choking, a tough word in any major sports endeavor.

Azinger, for his part, is looking forward to his new gig, though it is likely that he will not turn out to be as negative as Miller. I suspect he still will not pull any punches.

In a story in one of my golf magazines, it was reported that when word of the change leaked, Miller told Azinger: “Keep telling like it is. I don’t know why people can’t tell it like it is. You do and I do, but few others will.”

Azinger’s only reservation about the new position was the history at NBC where golf commentators, as he put it, “talk to each other.”

“At Fox or ESPN, we talked to the audience. At NBC, a lot of sentences end in somebody’s name.”

Azinger added that he may need to change his approach to coincide with that approach, but I suspect he could end upleading leading an effort to talk to the audience more directly.

Here is how Azinger ended the interview in the golf magazine.

“Toni (Azinger’s wife) told me that I’m good at two things: Golf and talking. That’s true, but she also told me, ‘remember, nobody tunes in to that tournament to hear you.’ She’s right again. My job is to inform the viewer about something that the pictures don’t show. And in that role, I’ve learned that less is more.  Hopefully, I’ll always keep that in mind.”

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll reports that voter interest in the mid-term elections has surged to record highs within both parties.

One reason is that President Donald Trump’s approval has gone up, though poll respondents still rate Democrats as the party most preferred to lead Congress.

According to the poll, “the findings post to an energized election, buffeted by dynamics that bring great uncertainty to the outcome of an election now just two weeks away.”

Of course, in the end, we’ll if projections for high turnout actually turn out to be true. Sometimes, in the past, high turnout hasn’t occurred as voters appear to get turned off instead of voting.

Three poll results:

• President Trump’s approval rating rose to 47 per cent, the highest mark in his time in office.
• Democrats still lead on the question of which party should control Congress.
• Democrats continue to be trusted more to handle health care, while Republicans still have the advantage on the economy.

All of this prompted pollster Bill McInturff to say: “It’s a barnburner. There’s a switch that’s been flipped. Americans are engaging in the campaign and the process.”

In another story, the Wall Street Journal reports that ”voters are casting early ballots between now and November 6, in what analysts are describing as ‘unprecedented voter interest in the 2018 midterm elections.”

So far, at least 4.7 million people have already cast their ballots, which dovetails with polling data that shows voting enthusiasm is off the charts.  [As an aside, did you know that campaign architects can find out if you have voted or not.  They cannot find out how you voted…just that you did or did not.]

As for enthusiasm, Democrats have had the advantage and are hoping it will propel them to a majority in the U.S. House. But the bitter Supreme Court battle over Justice Brett Kavanaugh appears to have jolted conservative voters and may help Republicans maintain or grow their majority in the Senate.

What does all this mean in the way of implications? Who knows? Of course, it depends on which way “interested voters” swing in individual races.

What could be the case:

• Democrats are likely to take control of the U.S. House
• Republicans are likely to retain control of the U.S. Senate
• Democrats are likely to retain control of both the House and Senate in Oregon, perhaps even supermajorities in both cases, which will make passing new taxes easier.
• In Oregon, high turnout will tend to benefit Democrat Kate Brown in her bid for re-election against Republican Knute Buehler. That’s especially true if Democrats – especially public employee union members who support Brown – bring in a huge number of ballots from Multnomah County, even if that occurs at the last minute in the mail ballot election. That usually swings close elections – like this one – toward the Ds.

That was true when Republican Chris Dudley lost a close election to former governor, Democrat John Kitzhaber. Incredibly, Dudley won 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties, but couldn’t get past high turnout in Multnomah County.

Previously, Republican Ron Saxton also came close to winning the governor’s race, but ceded ground in the end when, back in the day, Oregonians got tired of President George Bush and gave their allegiance to Democrats, including down ballot.

So, in all of this, if you have not yet voted, do so soon. My wife and I did yesterday, so at least that means we will not have to pay any more attention to political ads.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

If you read this blog – and I know at least one person who does — you may suspect that one of my favorite words is civility.

I ascribe this to the use of the word in one of my favorite political quotes of all time, one uttered by General Colin Powell who decided a number of years ago not run for president as he “bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

As I have written previously, I wish I would have been smart enough to say those words – in general and not in relation to any run for political office, which never interested me, nor would I have any chance to be elected.

Powell’s words were true 10 years ago and are even more true today.

The dictionary definition of civility is as follows:

Courtesy; politeness; polite action or expression.

Think about the nature of our country’s politics these days. Civility is not a word that would come to mind.

Democrats berate Republicans as being out of touch and supporters of various forms of depravity.

Republicans berate Democrats as the party of big government that wants to take away personal freedoms.

Each lacks civility toward the other and never the twain shall meet.

To see this in detail, look no farther than political advertising as we head toward a monumental November election that will decide which party controls the House and Senate in Congress.

If you see or hear the ads, you are not encouraged that anyone will ever find a way to reach agreement on the campaign trail. You will not hear or see civility in the ads and that is likely to set the stage for the same lack of civility once winners take office.

That brings me to another pet peeve of mine – the reality of a permanent campaign in this country.

Two authors – Christopher H. Browne, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dennis Thompson, Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy at Harvard University – have suggested that “political compromise is difficult in American democracy even though no one doubts it is necessary because of the incursion of campaigning into governing in American democracy.”

They call this the “permanent campaign” which encourages political attitudes and arguments that make compromise more difficult.

They continue: “ These constitute what we call the uncompromising mindset, characterized by politicians’ standing on principle and mistrusting opponents. This mindset is conducive to campaigning, but not to governing, because it stands in the way of necessary change and thereby biases the democratic process in favor of the status quo. The uncompromising mindset can be kept in check by an opposite cluster of attitudes and arguments — the compromising mindset that inclines politicians to adapt their principles and respect their opponents. This mindset is more appropriate for governing, because it enables politicians more readily to recognize and act on opportunities for desirable compromise.”

One of my partners sent me a note last weekend suggesting that, when it comes to health care, Democrats have all the answers and cannot persuade Republicans to come to the negotiating table because all Republicans do is oppose the Ds.

Well, I add that the negotiating table rarely works when both sides are yelling at each other. Smart Republicans – yes, there are some – have ideas about health care, short of a government-run single payer system, the first step toward which was the “Affordable Care Act,” sometimes known as ObamaCare.

So, I say a pox on the extremes in both parties.

I would favor a third party, which, of course, would have no chance to prevail. But a third party based on the idea of getting things done in Washington, D.C. – call it “compromise” or the “smart middle” – sounds better every time I think about.

Let civility prevail!

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

The far left is no good.

The far right is no good.

It appears there never is, as I call it, “a smart middle.”

And, if you had the bad fortune to watch the “circus” in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee – the “circus” over sexual allegations against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh – you would realize how bad the extremes are in this country.

The left and right, even if not “far” on either side, hate each other.

In a Washington Post piece the other day, the writer said this: “Even before President Trump’s election, hatred had begun to emerge on the American left—counter-intuitively, as an assertion of guilelessness and moral superiority.

“For many on the left, a hateful anti-Americanism has become a self-congratulatory lifestyle. ‘America was never that great,’ New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently said. For radical groups like Black Lives Matter, hatred of America is a theme of identity, a display of racial pride.”

Hare are a few additional points from the Washington Post piece.

• “For other leftists, hate is a license. Conservative speakers can be shouted down, even assaulted, on university campuses. Republican officials can be harassed in restaurants, in the street, in front of their homes. Certain leaders of the left—Representative Maxine Waters comes to mind—are self-appointed practitioners of hate, urging their followers to think of hatred as power itself.”
• “The genius of the left in the ’60s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus, the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. The left, not the right—not conservatism—would set the terms of this legitimacy and deliver America from shame to decency.”
• “This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored social programs in history—at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion. But for the left to wield this power, there had to be a great menace to fight against—a menace that kept America uncertain of its legitimacy, afraid for its good name.”
• “It is undeniable that America has achieved since the ’60s one of the greatest moral evolutions ever. That is a profound problem for the left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today—the source of its angst and hatefulness—is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace.”
• “Hatred is a transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. So it has become a weapon of choice. The left has used hate to transform President Trump into a symbol of the new racism, not a flawed president, but a systemic evil. And he must be opposed as one opposes racism, with a scorched-earth absolutism.

In one case in this country, that of Martin Luther King Jr., hatred was not necessary as a means to power. The actual details of oppression were enough. Power came to him because he rejected hate as a method of resisting menace.

So, what about the far right? It is no better than the left. It gets its power from opposing those on the left no matter the subject. That’s what put Trump in the Oval Office in the first place – a radical view of President Barack Obama and his standard commitment to more government.

Trump, of course, practices the language of hate to advance his own cause over that of the country in general.

Back to Obama. It appeared to this president and his supporters that, if there was a perceived problem, then there should be a government solution for it, thus the Washington Post writer’s estimate of some $22 trillion in government spending during the Obama years.

Obama clearly was a skilled orator, not to mention his solid grasp of the English language, which easily dwarfs Trump’s. Though Obama’s approach could sometimes become preachy, he made a solid oral case for his perspective that government could provide answers to all of the problems.

Among other things, his rested his second term on enacting what was called the Affordable Care Act, which, of course, was not affordable at all.

Political advertising at the moment does not add much of substance to the debate, especially over health care. Democrats say they have all the ideas and that Republicans only want to harm those with pre-existing conditions. Neither side is right.

With PolyAnna at my side, I wish for a return to the idea of policy debates that produce solutions somewhere in the middle, which is where the best solutions lie anyway. Not right. Not left. The middle.

Just know that I won’t be holding my breath, especially after watching the last month back and forth in Congress.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: 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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Every time I see a new editorial endorsement for a major political candidate, I wonder if such endorsements matter.

I suppose the answer is yes and no. Or, perhaps the effect is in the eye of the beholder.

I know my wife sometimes pays attention to endorsements on the theory – at least true in part — that those who write the endorsements have more time to study the issues or personalities involved and, thus, what they advocate is important.

On the other hand, endorsements may either be predictable on the basis of the political slant of the endorser.

I also know many people who ignore endorsements unless they coincide with their own pre-conceived views.

All of this came back to me this week as I noted that the Oregonian newspaper went against predictability when it endorsed Republican Knute Buehler for governor in his race against the incumbent, Democrat Kate Brown. The Oregonian often sides with Democrats in high-profile contests.

That also wasn’t the case a few years ago when the Oregonian surprised many readers by endorsing the Republican in the governor’s race, Ron Saxton. That irritated Democrats who protested the Oregonian’s decision. In the end, the endorsement didn’t matter. Democrat John Kitzhaber won.

As a person who has been involved in many election races in the past, I think editorial endorsements have at least two results.

First, if you get the endorsement, you are happy because you wanted it. So, you turn around and use the favorable language in political advertising, thus suggesting that a third-party thinks you are credible and should win.

Second, if you do not get the endorsement, you also use that to your advantage. You use the slight to energize your advocates to be even more heavily invested in your campaign. In other words, prod those who support you to be mad about the endorsement so they work harder on your behalf.

So, if you are running for election, do you want editorial endorsements? Yes. But getting them is no guarantee of success.