The Real Work Begins

It’s been over one week since the mid-term election, a day when Americans decided to vote for a sweeping change in the balance of power. If you’re a conservative voter, you may have been asked sometime in the past week why you think the so-called Republican wave happened. Here’s how I analyze it: As someone who grew up with asthma, I’m very familiar with the sensation of feeling like an elephant is sitting on your chest. When that happens, asthmatics need to grab their inhalers and give themselves a metered dose of medicine. What does this have to do with the election? For the past eight years, Democrats didn’t realize that their policies were hurting, rather than helping voters. I have long said that Democrats weren’t going to figure out what was going on until the elephant came to sit on their collective chest – and that’s what happened last Tuesday night. Hopefully, they have now woken up enough to see that they truly need to work with Republicans, rather than blame all of their failings on the other side.

Now, here’s my hope for the new Senate majority: That they will conduct their business with some common sense. We have heard for the past few years that if Republicans could just take back the Senate, then the Affordable Care Act could be repealed. As appealing as many conservative voters may find that prospect, I am not entirely on board with that goal. Repealing Obamacare would be political suicide for the Republicans, because it would send a message of extremism – which plays right into the Democrats’ hands. They would love nothing more than to be able to say that the Republicans in Congress stripped millions of Americans of healthcare. So right now, repealing Obamacare should not be their goal.

What should their goal be? As presumptive new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated last week, it should be to pass one bill per week. Little by little, the new majority can work with their Democrat colleagues on bills that might actually get to the President’s desk. Ideally, this might get the Keystone XL pipeline built, or make some changes to Obamacare that the President might actually look at. Passing bills that make baby steps of difference is the Republicans’ best bet for bringing about positive change on the domestic policy front.

As I said on my radio show last week, this was not a win for Republicans so much as it was a loss for Democrats. The real win for Republicans will be in the trenches over the next two years, as they work to prove their worth for the American people. Now, the real work for them begins.

Ed Hoffman is the host of the Main Event on AM590 which airs Saturday 9:30AM- 10:30AM and Sunday 4:00PM- 5:00PM. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event AM590.