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.

After watching the to’ing and fro’ing in the Nation’s Capitol this week, I find myself wishing for a bit of the old order of politics.

That would be the time when Republicans and Democrats would disagree by day on major policy issues, then agree by evening, often over a glass of wine.

It was an illustration of the old political saw: They knew how to disagree agreeably.

No longer.

Now we have one side going after the other as if there was no tomorrow.

Enter the “Russian issue.”

There is ample evidence to suggest that both Republican and Democrat operatives sought dirt from Russians to throw on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Charges against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, plus a guilty plea from George Papadopoulous, are only the first steps down an unclear path being charted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Could the steps lead to Trump’s door? Probably.

Could they lead to Clinton’s door? Who knows?

One commentator I read, perhaps in response to charges that Facebook had posted, probably haphazardly, Russian ads during the presidential campaign, said he couldn’t imagine how Facebook ads could change the character of a national election in this country.

Plus, the commentator raised questions about whether Russia, with all of its internal problems that threaten the reign of Vladimir Putin, could have believed it could skew the U.S. escalation, even as hard as it tried to do so.

Further, Don Levin, a post-doctoral fellow in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie-Mellon University, makes three contentions about Russian interference.

First, he says covert interventions are much less effective than overt ones. “Covert interventions are more limited in the amount of assistance they can provide because of the need for operational secrecy. So in this case, the choice of a covert intervention by Russia weakens its effects.”

Second, Levin says electoral interventions by major powers in U.S. presidential elections have historically been ineffective or counterproductive. “John Adams still won the presidential election of 1796, and the backlash against the intervention led him to gain more Electoral College votes than he lost.

“Likewise, historians who studied later interventions in U.S. elections in 1940, 1948 and 1984 generally concluded that none had any significant effects on these elections.

Third, Levin says that, once interventions have been partly exposed, they are likely to be even less successful than they would have been had they proceeded in secret.

Is Mr. Levin right? Again, who knows ?

My concern is that the current skirmishes in Washington, D.C. shield what should be a spirited debate about tax reform. Not a debate that benefits one party or the other in the prelude to mid-term elections.

But, rather, a debate that focuses on how tax reform would affect taxpayers and businesses in this country.

That’s where our emphasis should be, but I suspect in the coming days and weeks we’ll be seeing more of Russia on our front pages and airwaves than tax reform principles.

Footnote: Speaking of tax reform, editorial from the Wall Street Journal this week contained this sage bit of advice – and this is the kind of debate we should be able to watch in Washington, D.C.

“The GOP tax blueprint released earlier this fall called for an unspecified expansion of the child tax credit, which now is $1,000 a child. But Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee are demanding that the credit “be at least doubled” and apply against payroll taxes. This would be bad tax policy and politics.

“Tax credits for kids—what’s not to like? The answer is obvious if you step back and consider the purpose of a tax code. The goal should be to raise the money needed to fund the government with the least amount of economic distortion.

“The simplest system is also the fairest and the most efficient. Politicians who want to promote social policies can do so via spending or regulation, but when they lace the tax code with special favors they force tax rates higher and reduce economic growth. To benefit from these tax favors, Americans must also behave in ways that politicians require—like buying a Tesla—but are not the best for the economy. The point of reform is to return to the first tax principles of raising money with the least amount of political meddling.”