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Sure, the polling is becoming less reliable for the reasons that you stated above, but I'm talking about something else.

The Democrats don't know what the man on the street is thinking. They don't know what is truly important, and they can't discern the priorities of mainstream America - because the Democrats and the media elites aren't listening to the common man.

On the other hand, the more accurate technical gauge, (polling, media, and Democratic spinsters aside), was the level of contributions.

While the press was claiming that "this election is below the radar", that "turnout was key", and that "no one knew" what the turnout would be, the numbers of contributions and the sum of the amounts of contributions pointed to dramatic interest in this mid-term election. Those contributions also accurately predicted the final national turnout as well as the Republican sweep.

NEWSFLASH TO ALL MEDIA TYPES AND POLLSTERS: people who contribute money to a campaign are MORE likely to go vote in that campaign.

The Democrats don't know what the man on the street is thinking.

I agree that some of the more visible "opinion leader" type Democrats -- like the ones in the New York media and in Hollywood -- live in bizarre little enclaves where their chances of running into an actual Republican are near-zero, and certainly zero at any social function they would attend. I think that absolutely warps the way they think and talk, and I think it's most visible in the New York media... the Dan Rathers and the Maureen Dowds. They are clearly on some other planet where 1960's liberalism is "mainstream."

I also think that too many Washington Democrats -- and waaaaayy too many Republicans -- believe the crap they read in the Washington Post, and think that somehow represents reality.

There is some evidence for your hypothesis in the behavior of Mary Landrieu, who has apparently just fired her campaign staff and told the national party to stay the Hell out of her runoff race, which she intends to run on the basis of "Louisiana values." I don't know that she's in any better touch with those values than Terry McAuliffe, but she thinks she is, and she is clearly implying that the Washington-based DNC people are not.