Civility, R.I.P.

“ORDINARILY, we would be happy to congratulate the winner,” said the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party, the ever ungracious Vince Insalaco, “but in the case of Mr. Cooper, we cannot condone the negative and divisive methods he used throughout his campaign.”

He was talking about the winner, John Cooper, in the race for the state Senate seat that Paul Bookout vacated-and needed to-in a mudslide of a scandal. No wonder Vince Insalaco sounded irritated. For not only did the Republican candidate take that key seat Tuesday, and raise the Republican majority in the Senate from an already impressive 21 to 22 votes out of that chamber’s 35 members, but Mr. Cooper did it decisively. He drew 57 percent of the vote-an Eisenhoweran margin-against a hopeless Democratic candidate saddled with this administration’s gift to every GOP nominee in the country: Obamacare.

If criticizing Obamacare is a negative tactic, it’s positively unifying for Republicans. As for Obamacare itself, it’s having the most negative repercussions for every Democratic candidate on the ballot this year. And the winner in this race made full use of it. He didn’t have issues to exploit but an issue-Obamacare-and it was more than enough to sweep him into the state Senate.

Not just Republicans have caught on to this president’s Signature Accomplishment; Democratic candidates across the country are desperate to distance themselves from it. Even the president avoids referring to his namesake these days, preferring its formal title, the Affordable Care Act for short, however unaffordable it’s proving.

Here in Arkansas, our weathervane of a governor, who can feel even the slightest zephyr in the political atmosphere, has got Arkansas a waiver from this political tornado that bears the president’s name. Governor Beebe led a delegation of governors to the White House this week to ask that other states, too, be allowed to remodel Obamacare’s more onerous terms to fit their own needs and desires.

Good idea. And not just politically but practically. Obamacare doesn’t have to be repealed in one swift stroke the way Prohibition was when it proved unworkable. Instead, each state could be allowed to adopt its own plan to provide the poor with health insurance-whether it’s called the Private Option, as in Arkansas, or some other palatable name. That way, Obamacare could die the death of 50 strokes and still be called Obamacare.

If this approach worked, the president might be able pronounce the word Obamacare without shame. He’s already adopted this tack by handing out delays and detours galore to favored states, unions, special interests, voting blocs . . . you name it. The president calls them waivers, but they’d be as welcome by any other name. Why not let everybody in on them? That would be one way to restore his popularity-and his party’s.

Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, who was part of this gubernatorial delegation at the White House, said that all 50 states should have the same flexibility that Arkansas has to adapt Obamacare to its own needs-and wants and values.The way Massachusetts has done. That state has shown that a national program doesn’t have to be a straitjacket but can be tailored to the circumstances, population, income and sensitivities of each state. No wonder Romneycare is still a respected name there.

HERE IN Arkansas, the Private Option could use a nip here and a tuck there to make it more than just a Medicaid Transfer program. Republican legislators, who are soon enough to include a John Cooper in their number, ought to be working up alternatives to the Private Option rather than just giving up on it. They ought to be considering ways to make it, well, more private. And more affordable. And more efficient when it comes to providing care for those who need it most and can afford it least.

It can be done. Or at least we won’t know it can’t be done so long as Republicans haven’t tried to do it. Let this state be one of those 50 “laboratories of democracy” Mr. Justice Brandeis mentioned in a rightly celebrated decision.Laboratories where each state can “try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” If only this president had gone with such a state-by-state approach, his Signature Accomplishment might have been an accomplishment instead of an albatross around his neck and his party’s this election year.

This approach is called federalism. (It used to be called states’ rights before the segs gave that respectable term an unmistakable odor.) And this administration ought to try it. For example, why not let states offer bare-bones, no-frills health insurance plans? And not just the gold-plated kind Obamacare requires. Both insured and insurers might profit, not to mention state and federal taxpayers. Everybody might welcome such a change-especially beleaguered Democratic candidates this election year. Then they could all look like smiling winners like Mike Beebe instead of sour losers like Vince Insalaco.