E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in The Washington Post: “Both the leaders and rank-and-file of the Republican Party devoutly believe ‘the people’ gave them a mandate last November to slash government, including that big-government health-care program known as Medicare. . . . Then came Tuesday’s thunder out of western New York. Democrat Kathy Hochul won her surprisingly comfortable special-election victory in the very Republican 26th Congressional District, largely because of the early endorsement her Republican opponent, Jane Corwin, gave to Ryan’s budget and its Medicare proposals.”