Who Deserted the Democrats in 1994?  American elections have
long best been understood as referenda on the economy, but last
November the economy didn't seem to matter to voters. By most
traditional measures 1992 through 1994 were years of strong
economic performance, yet the incumbent Democrats took a
historic beating. For exultant Republican pollsters, this was
evidence of a genuine ideological victory. For social scientists
who touted models of voter behavior geared to economic
aggregates such as growth in gross domestic product, it was
another professional embarassment. For Democratic strategists,
or anyone interested in something better than Contract politics,
it should be a wake-up call for a more careful analysis. Either
the economy really does not matter, in which case Democrats need
to find new ideological appeals to an increasingly conservative
voting public. Or it matters in ways that traditional analyses
do not detect, in which case Democrats need a new electoral
strategy based on new economic  Wh