You state that the Democratic base stayed home in 1994. Please note that they did this despite Newt's in-your-face contract with America.So noted.
Why do you think they stayed home?
Because they were extremely PO'd at Clinton. The man and his administration were a complete Charlie-Fox from 1993 to January 1995.
If the me too advocates are right, one would have expected that Newt's "take no prisoners" strategy should have galvanized the left to turn out for the Democrats and thus overwhelm the right at the polls.
The Democrats didn't have anything coherent to offer in response, just a bunch of hysterical attacks on the wrong end of reality.
The problem with Newt's strategy is that it only works ONCE in a generation. They do learn from their mistakes, and not voting at all is a BIG one. Unfortunately, the "conservative base" has not figured this little detail out in 10 years.
Well...our memories are different. I don't remember that the liberals were mad at Clinton in 1994. Clinton was giving them everything they wanted such as pressing for socialized medicine and abandoning his pledge to make a middle class tax cut. This should have motivated them...but for some reason it didn't at least not as much as it motivated conservatives.
In 1996, the liberal base was *more* motivated (and conservatives were *more* dis-spirited) when Dole ran a very weak moderate campaign. During that same campaign, the GOP in Congress was aimless and mushy because they had backed down on the government shutdown issue. They didnt' have a "contract with America," they had nothing and got nothing in return.