Dick Morris, of course, had said that the Demos would win (I can’t remember if I blogged it at the time; I thought it so stupid--about a week before the election--that I may not have). But here is his piece today trying to explain why he missed it all. The piece is perfectly ordinary, but the essence of it I quote here because this is what I did, and this is why I got it right (except for those 500 or so voters in South Dakota, darn it!); and this is what the ordinary pundits/pollsters can’t do; they pay too much attention to polls, numbers, all the inside crap. So Morris explains, in effect, why I got it right:

"Unfortunately, I missed many of these developments as they
were unfolding. The hardest thing to do in politics is to be an
insider and think like an outsider -- like a real, live voter."

Unfortunately, there is no formula for this. Add a little knowledge of human nature (theory, Robert!), know a few real citizens, talk to folks (not the oh-so-deep-thinkers), get a sense of the larger things they are thinking about (war, peace, economy, trust, etc.) and add a dash of common sense, and a little Shakespeare for the music. Of course, this is all "unscientific" (thank God!) so everyone calls it a guess. It is really analysis and insight. It used to be called thinking. Of course, it also means you can be wrong. Yet, when you are wrong, you can explain why you are wrong. You still end up learning something. This last point explains why the Demo operatives can’t explain what happened on Tuesday.