ABSTRACT
Washington is a town where political predictions and punditry are more popular than even the hometown Redskins. Most of the talk around town for the year leading up to election night was that the Democrats had a very good chance to take control of the House of Representatives and retain the White House. Most political observers believed that the Republican House leadership could not recover from the bruising it took in 1998 and that the nation’s strong economy would send A1 Gore to the White House. But the conventional wisdom also held that the Democrats had a very slim chance to gain parity in the Senate, much less a majority. Of course A1 Gore lost, the Republicans retained the House, and the Democrats almost won control of the Senate. So much for the conventional wisdom.
