I know it’s a little bit late to start analyzing the recent elections, but I’ve been rather busy this past week (pardon me for sounding like the Mother of All Excuses Place website).

The long and the short of it is that the Republicans (yes, that is how I am registered) had been getting a bit arrogant ­ and a bit expensive, what with the taxes (federal, state or local), cost of gasoline, cost of transportation (public and private), et cetera. Every Republican loss boils down to someone’s arrogance or something’s expense.

Long serving Nassau County NY DA Denis Dillon’s loss to Kathleen Rice had elements of arrogance and expensiveness. Dillon was getting arrogant after 3 decades in office, but the voters of Roslyn were further disenchanted with Dillon on account of what they viewed as a slap on the wrist for their disgraced school superintendent Frank Tassone. It was Tassone who did Dillon in, at least in Roslyn.

Arrogance is nothing new. After three terms, Alphonse D’Amato became the ex-Senator from New York by a very thin margin, because he had gotten a bit too arrogant for many voters who would otherwise have supported him. And D’Amato’s colleague Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania had been given the lesson in 1967 when he lost the race for Mayor of Philadelphia (some believe that Arlen needs a refresher course). After winning the legalistic argument that he was not required to resign as District Attorney to run for Mayor because the DA post was a state job and not covered by the provisions of the Philadelphia City Charter, he lost the election by a thin margin because too many people thought that he had been a bit too arrogant. Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do.

But there are two kinds of politicians: Those who strive for the public welfare, and those who are in office. There are many Republicans who must now shift gears and start striving for the good of their communities.