Many folk have claimed victory from the election earlier this month. Certainly much has happened. But has anything really changed?

Republicans picked up 60 seats in the House — a historic gain by any measure. But aside from John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi swapping prized office space in the Capitol, has anything really changed?

The tea partiers claim a groundswell of support for their somewhat amorphous agenda, which includes contradictory goals of lowering taxes and deficits at the same time.

The movement was all the craze leading up to the election, but the tea partiers failed to elect three of their most prominent candidates for the U.S. Senate. In Nevada and Delaware, the Republicans had wonderful opportunities to actually gain two more seats and control of the Senate. But the tea party candidates imploded and dashed any hope of a complete congressional takeover.

Tea party poster child Sarah Palin could not even get her hand-picked candidate elected in the the state where she once served as governor

This election saw a number of moderate Democrats shown the door. In ousting these folks, this election has effectively made the liberals in that party even more powerful than they had been.

The fact of the matter is this is probably not simply an all-out referendum for the conservative agenda, but rather a repudiation of the way government operates. I would suggest that it is not just the bloated government we oppose, but more of how we got the bloated government. No one likes being taxed, but we do want our meat inspected, our streets safe and our military strong.

For the third time in as many election cycles, the voters have voted for change. In 2010, the bums we threw out just happened to be Democrats.

Two years ago, there was a true groundswell for Barack Obama and what he stood for. The Republican Party has gained back much of what it lost, but Democrats still run the Senate, and Obama is still the president.

Chest-beating comments by the man who will be elected Speaker on Jan. 4 are of no help at all, as when Boehner recently said: “This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise. ... To the extent the president wants to work with us, we welcome his involvement.”

This may sound all well and good, but many American’s voted for folks, especially our president, who hold a different set of ideals and principles.

As much as anything, the voters were saying no to gridlock, which is exactly what Mr. Boehner seems to be promising.

We now live in a period where we have campaigners and not legislators. There was a time when things were far different. There can be no more partisan figures than Tip O’Neill on the left and Ronald Reagan on the right. Each embodied an ideal that propelled them to the highest offices in the land. But more than partisan, they were pragmatic. They respected each other’s love of our country and seemed to have loved and respected each other.

Legend has it that when President Ronald Reagan was shot, Tip O’Neill, speaker of the House and liberal lightning rod, went to the hospital and wept at the bedside of his conservative foe. No more!

Taking the lead of her Republican predecessors, Speaker Pelosi ruled the legislative process from a centralized position of power. Speaker-in-waiting Boehner has announced the power will revert back to the chairman of the various committees — where, presumably, open debate will occur.

We know whom we have sent to office. The question is what we have sent. Will the Republicans change the system and work to cure its flaws? Will they be the strong leaders the Democrats seem to have failed to become, or will they be as poor winners as they have been incredibly sore losers?

The only solution is for those with power to use it with generosity to those without. Sadly that is probably not going to happen.

Chris Larsen, who formerly worked in public relations and lobbying in Washington, lives in Southern Pines. Contact him at cdlars42@gmail.com.