NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Adlai Stevenson said it best about losing and election when he said, "It hurts too much to laugh, and I'm too big to cry." Actually, I wasn't close to tears or nearly as angry about this election as I was in 1980. That year, when Frank White upset Bill Clinton by repeating four words, "car tags and Cubans" I was not a pleasant person to be around for quite a while. In fact, my co-workers at Walmart started a fund to either buy me tranquilizers or have me euthanized.

I wasn't too upset this time because I saw it coming. All a Republican in Arkansas had to do to win was say two words, "Barack Obama". Tom Cotton couldn't utter two sentences without saying those words. Leslie Rutledge, our next Attorney General, who is probably one of the most inept attorneys in the state, won by promising to sue you-know-who. Candidates for the Legislature like Dwight Tosh ran against the private option, ignoring the fact that it is working, and reminding voters that it was part of that bug-a-boo they call Obamacare.

I'm also comforted by the knowledge that now the onus is on the Republicans. Now that they have the power, the voters are going to expect results, and they, and those they elected are going to be very disappointed. Nothing is really going to change in Washington in the next two years. The Congress will send bills to the President that he will veto, and they don't have the votes to override a veto. And we already know that Congress won't pass any bills the President sends to Capitol Hill. They've spent the last six years opposing anything he sent them, they aren't about to change now.

Mitch McConnell will soon discover that he will have as much trouble controlling a Tea Party Senate as John Boehner did trying to control a Tea Party House. I predict that it won't be too long before McConnell wishes he had Mark Pryor in the Senate instead of Tom Cotton.

In a perfect world, Obama would invite McConnell and Boehner to the White House and offer them a deal something like this. He would agree to sign off on the Keystone Pipeline if they would promise to quit opposing him on reducing carbon emissions. He could also promise to sign any immigration bill they send him, no matter what's in it, if in return they will stop trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He would offer to be open to amendments to the ACA, but repeal would have to be off the table.

Unfortunately this isn't a perfect world, and no such deal will ever be made for two reasons. One is that Obama doesn't have the political skill to make any kind of deal. Another is that Democrats would try to torpedo any such deal. That's because if it happened it would look like Republicans could get things done when they couldn't. That would make it harder for Democrats to be re-elected. As I've told you before, the number one priority of any politician is to be re-elected. That's all that really matters to them.

On the state level, the election of Asa Hutchinson may be the best thing that could happen to the private option. Hutchinson knows that the private option is working, and it must be in place if he wants to keep his promise to cut income taxes. He also can't afford to anger the over 200,000 Arkansans that would lose their health insurance if the private option ended.

Here's what will probably happen. Hutchinson will huddle with Legislative leaders and convince them that he needs the private option. The Ledge will amend the private option, claim that they have made it better, and pass it.

So the election is over and the Republicans are in charge. It's up to them to prove they deserve their new power, or screw things up royally. I'm betting that like Frank White, they will screw up royally.