Predicting politics is like filling out NCAA brackets: Your predictions and your brackets will get busted.

EG: Who predicted the Republican debacle on health care?

Nobody.

Which explains why Republicans and Democrats alike are thrashing on an HB2 compromise.

Republicans already were wrong about it once. When they rushed it through last March, they thought it would be a winner in November. Instead, it elected Roy Cooper, Josh Stein and a handful of Democratic legislators – despite the Trump tide.

So it’s easy for Democrats to conclude that HB2 will be a winner again in the next election.

Or maybe Democrats will get the blame for not compromising.

Governor Cooper would love nothing more than to take the HB2 anchor off North Carolina’s economy. But not in a way that means more discrimination and gay-baiting.

Republicans are torn between fear of HB2 if they don’t compromise – and fear of their base if they do.

Running for office and making promises is easy. Governing is hard. And predicting politics is harder than picking basketball brackets.