The message from voters Tuesday - sure to reverberate in Washington and state capitals for years to come - was unmistakably clear: Underestimate us at your own peril. We've had enough.
Maligned this year as selfish, whiny, ungrateful, ill-informed and easily led, voters said in no uncertain terms they want:
-- Lower taxes.
-- Smaller government.
-- More personal freedom.
-- Hard-line approaches to crime and welfare reform.
-- Limited revision of the health-care system.
-- A return to traditional morals and values.
Voters handed control of Congress and most governorships to the Republicans while adding GOP muscle to many state legislatures, figuring wholesale change may get them what they want.
But fail to deliver, the mandate implied, and we'll be back to get you in two years.
"This is an electorate with an increasingly short fuse," says Democratic pollster Alan Secrest.
"Republicans are going to be held accountable for what they ran on," agrees GOP pollster Glen Bolger.
At the same time voters registered a strong no-confidence vote in President Clinton, putting him on notice to shape up - move more to the center - or face extinction in 1996.
Fewer than one in three who voted Tuesday said they would vote for Clinton in 1996.
A chastened Clinton said Wednesday that he's heard the message loud and clear. So once again, he'll try to recoup by recasting himself.
"They want a smaller government that gives them better value for their dollar," he said, a government "that is not a burden to them."
But that was not what voters thought he offered with his sweeping health-care reform plan, and congressional Democrats took the blame.
-- Exit polls showed those who thought putting off health care this year was a good idea voted 2-1 for the GOP.
-- Those who thought government, overall, should do less, not more, broke even more heavily for Republicans.
-- Even the crime issue slightly favored the GOP, even after Democrats figured they scored a coup by passing a crime bill. Republicans scored by playing up the bill's big-spending social programs.
"It was only a matter of time before voters rose up," says Democratic consultant Brian Lunde. "We became the party of big government."
Analysts say Democrats in Congress had been dodging the big-government bullet for years, camouflaged as long as there was a Republican in the White House. But when Democrat Clinton took over, creating clear one-party control, who to blame became obvious.
"With Clinton, voters felt conned," Lunde says. "The centrist Democrat they thought they were voting for in 1992 turned out to be another old Democrat."
For many voters, the election was a referendum on Clinton. Half of GOP voters said a reason for their vote was to express opposition to him.
Only one-third of Democratic voters said their vote was to express support for Clinton.
Summed up Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker: "It's the president, stupid."
With laser-like precision, voters honed in on selected Democrats and zapped them, leaving all Republican congressional and gubernatorial incumbents untouched.
Meanwhile, voters confounded pundits who figured blind voter anger would sweep into office unconventional GOP figures such as Iran-contra participant Oliver North in Virginia and millionaire Michael Huffington in California.
It didn't, demonstrating a deft voter ability to pinpoint rather than bludgeon.
"Voters are a lot smarter than political types give them credit for," Bolger says.
But it did result in the demise of some entrenched Democratic powers - House Speaker Tom Foley, Illinois Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Texas Rep. Jack Brooks and Tennessee Sen. James Sasser.
But some raw rookies swept into office on the tide of change may turn out to be less than up to the job next time out.
"Where 1992 was the year of the woman, 1994 may be the year of the empty suit," quips Baker.
To be sure, the history-making vote for Republican candidates in Congress in large part reflects the broad streak of conservative viewpoints running through the electorate. It's a viewpoint Democratic leaders failed to give its due.
Thus, exit polls show those who saw the long arm of government reaching too deeply into their lives voted overwhelmingly with the GOP.
Among them:
-- Gun owners miffed at Democrat-imposed gun laws. They were one-fourth of the electorate and put up about one-third of the GOP vote.
-- Ross Perot voters fed up with Washington in general. They were 14% of the electorate and voted 2-1 Republican.
-- Talk-radio listeners; 21% of the electorate, leaned 64%-36% toward the GOP.
-- Members of the religious right; 14% of the electorate, voted nearly 3-1 Republican.
Economics played a role:
-- 80% of those who voted for a Republican candidate said their financial situation hadn't improved since Clinton took office.
-- Two-thirds of voters backing GOP candidates gave the economy a negative rating.
When the anti-Democratic tide began building in October, analysts tried to attribute it, in part, to an electorate too lazy to get the facts. Once enlightened, the theory was, they'd come to their senses.
Even Clinton got into act, complaining in an interview with Black Entertainment Television that angry voters should "stop blaming everybody else for what they don't know" and get informed.
"A mistake," Lunde says. "In politics, as in business, the customer is always right."
