Do politics leave you feeling tired, bloated and vaguely empty, even though you still can’t get 
enough? Do you feel hung-over after another one of those furious, power-driven political arguments that you’re sure you didn’t lose? Do you feel cheated when you explain your political opinion to people and all they do is murmur and shuffle their feet? Maybe the problem isn’t all those knuckleheads out there who just can’t follow your compelling discourse.
Maybe the problem is politics.
Maybe the problem is that we mistake politics for something that really does matter — policy. Yammering about politics solves nothing. But creating effective policy change can change the world. This blog is dedicated to intelligent policy change.
I was a print journalist for nearly 25 years, including 14 years as an editorial writer. Many major American newspapers, including the New York Times and Washington Post, have published my opinion articles. I was a fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Society of Professional Journalists in writing about public health. But I have always essentially been a generalist.
There’s only one subject I find tiresome: politics. For many years, I was the token liberal in a nest of conservatives on the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board. But, as it turned out, I wrote more editorials than my colleagues because I didn’t write about politics (since my politics didn’t agree with the publisher’s). I wrote about policies — health, environment, natural resources, transportation, energy, infrastructure, foreign, etc. My opinions were always my own. I found that if I got out in front of a subject, and took a knowledge-based stand, it would be a while before the ideologues could figure out whether my position was right or left.
And that’s the way with most good policy discussions. The policy comes first; let others figure out the politics, if they want to.
So bring your opinions about policy change. But please also try to bring facts. Link to research, or at least to research-based articles. Because as much as we all love to hear ourselves talk, data still has an important place in the world.
