The media refuses to admit it, but the REASON that all of the Democrats, as well as all of the press, missed the call on the elections this year is because NONE of them are listening to the man on the street.
If you actually go out to get a burger and dare to speak to your fellow man, everyone has been talking about how the press is too biased and how the Democrats have no new ideas.
But the elites in the media and the elites in the Democratic Party don't leave their ivory towers to go talk to the common man. They don't know what the man on the street has been saying, and consequently they haven't seen any of the sea-changes coming.
Neither the media nor the Democrats saw the 1994 Republican landslide coming. Neither the media nor the Democrats saw what was happening in the primaries this year, either (where moderates replaced extremists, e.g. Hilliard lost, Cynthia McKinney lost, Bob Smith lost, et al).
The media and the Democrats miscalled this years turnout, and they missed it in BOTH directions. They both claimed that states that ended with high turnout would have low turnout (e.g. Minnesota), and they claimed that the states that actually had low turnout would have high turnout (e.g. Texas).
The media and the Democrats miscalled the House elections this year, claiming that Democrats would pick up seats. In reality, they lost them.
The media and the Democrats both claimed that the Democrats would hold a majority of governorships after this year. Instead, the Democrats lost their own incumbent governors in states such as Vermount, Georgia, Alabama, and South Dakota.
The media and the Democrats flat out missed the nationwide trend by claiming that the Democrats would hold the Senate, too.
And the reason that both the media and the Democrats missed ALL OF THESE PREDICTIONS is because they are out of touch with mainstream America.
The media and the Democrats do NOT represent the average American. They don't know what the average American is thinking and they don't know how the average American will vote.
In short, the media and the Democrats are staffed with elites who do not listen (nor do they want to listen) to mainstream Americans.
Their predictions were wrong in 1994. They were wrong in 2000. They were wrong this year, and they will be wrong again in 2004.
Democrats and media talking heads do NOT listen to average Americans, so there is just no way that they can know what we want or what we will do.