Congressman: "our political positions are driven by our constituencies"-- Oh, really??

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Why Golf and Politics Don't Mix
By John Paul Newport, March 15, 2013

President Obama's high-profile round of golf with Tiger Woods last month in Florida might have been a mistake. Not because it wasn't fun, according to both men, but because it attracted unwanted attention on the eve of across-the-board budget cuts under the sequester. Now, as penance, Obama is coming under pressure to use his golf games more for the greater national good. It's as if you or I were suddenly asked to abandon golf as a getaway and use it primarily as a tool for, say, working on our marriage. It might work. Many husbands and wives bond over golf. On the other hand, it might not, and giving up golf as an escape is a lot to ask. 

By way of background, Obama's long golf weekend in Florida, which also included lessons from Butch Harmon, inspired a legislative proposal by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R., Texas) to bar the use of taxpayer funds for transporting Obama to or from golf courses until public tours of the White House resume. Some have charged that Obama put the tours on hold to dramatize the impact of the sequester's budget cuts. By Gohmert's reckoning, one or two fewer golf trips by Obama, including the cost of security, would save enough money to prevent the furlough of 341 government workers.

This little political squabble inspired Michael Bloomberg to opine on Sunday that Obama should play more golf, not less, during the sequester. "He should be doing that every weekend," the New York mayor said, as long as he plays with political opponents, not the staffers and pals he usually tees it up with. "You always can work better with somebody that you have a chance to build a social relationship with," Bloomberg told CBS's "Face the Nation. (Whether Bloomberg practices what he preaches on the course is murky, because his rounds—many of them on weekends in Bermuda—are kept very private.)

Either path—not playing golf at all to save taxpayer money, or playing only with political opponents—would be a big change for Obama. Until now, he has used golf the way most presidents have, even glad-handing extroverts like Bill Clinton: as an escape from phones and cameras and pressure and the constant demands on their time.

"One of the reasons I always liked golf is because the rest of my life is going at breakneck speed and everything had to be done fast and this is the place where I had to slow down," Clinton told Don Van Natta Jr. in "First Off the Tee," the definitive book about presidents and golf. "You literally can't think about anything else. If you do, you can't hit a shot."

Golf, an enduring symbol of elitism and exclusion no matter the demographic reality, has always been a tricky, often toxic subject for presidents. John Kennedy, who according to Van Natta was the most accomplished golfer ever to occupy the Oval Office (despite chronic back problems), kept his affection for the game under wraps to create a more youthful image than that which clung to his beloved predecessor, the truly golf-besotted Dwight Eisenhower. Ike played more than 800 rounds of golf while in office, a quarter of them at Augusta National.

Obama thus far is at 115 rounds, according to obamagolfcounter.com, which takes its figures from White House pool press reports. The website keeps tabs on Obama's links activity from a decidedly hostile point of view. A typical commentary, from October 2011: "Making a break from conducting class warfare, President Obama yesterday loaded up his 12-car motorcade and went golfing for the 25th time this year." 

Such is the flak any president takes for pursuing golf while in office—and it doesn't matter which party, because golf is clearly a bipartisan sin. Clinton took heat for his loose self-enforcement of the rules. Both Bush presidents were ribbed for their golf habits, particularly the rabbitlike speed with which they dashed around the course. George W. Bush felt golf was such a political liability in a time of war that he stopped playing entirely from August 2003 until the end of his second term.

Given that playing golf for fun is almost always a political negative for presidents, maybe Obama should take Bloomberg's advice and use the game for political gain. Doing so would meld with his recent attempt at a charm offensive toward Republican legislators.

Unfortunately, Obama's previous attempt to use golf as a icebreaker with Republicans didn't work out so well. In 2011, amid the deadlock over increasing the nation's debt limit, he invited House Majority Leader John Boehner and Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich for a round with him and Vice President Joe Biden at Andrews Air Force Base. Officially, a good time was had by all. Obama and Boehner beat Biden and Kasich out of $2 a man. But the needle on comity barely budged.

As I've written before, the power of golf as a social and business broker tends to be exaggerated, as it is with politics. 

"I would like to say that golf is the cure for our national dysfunction, but I just don't think it is," said Rep. John Yarmuth (D., Ky.), who is probably Congress's best golfer (his handicap is listed as +0.5). Yarmuth was the captain of the Democratic team that each year takes on a Republican team in a Ryder Cup-style charity event called the Roll Call Cup.

"I think people misread what relationships are like to begin with. We all get along pretty well. I have many Republican friends. We talk basketball and sit down for lunch together," said the congressman. "But in the final analysis, our political positions are driven by our constituencies." He added that 24/7 media scrutiny of politicians these days makes any kind of behind-the-scenes deal-making based on friendships, or golf, much more unlikely than in the past. 

We'd all probably be better off if our presidents just played golf for the reason most of us do—to relax and let off steam.
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