The Senescent Man

This blog made several observations before the election on Tuesday, some of which are now coming out of the MSM as "key factors" contributing to the outcome.

One factor was "Ohio." The Horserace Blog (THB) repeatedly reassured his visitors that Bush had a lock on Ohio albeit by a razor, but the statistical foundation was there - we shared his analysis. He hit it on the nose.

Another factor was Zogby. Zogby was accurate in 1996, and in 2000 the only pollster to indicate that Florida would be the key, but in 2004 his polling was irratic. His daily polls in the same states would shift by 4 to 6 percentage points, and his methodology was questionable. He has also always been biased toward the Democrat, and in May had declared Kerry would win. THB said he was not credible any longer, and he wasn't. Initially The Senescent Man said to keep an eye on him. It is a good thing we abandoned him in recent weeks and went with THB.

Still another factor was Exit Polling. THB said they were bogus this time around, and boy were they ever this year. Around mid-day the Kerry campaign felt like they couldn't lose, while the Bush squad began to feel a depressing 10,000 pound weight on their shoulders. We, at The Senescent Man, refused to believe them. On election night we continued to watch the ever increasing differential in the popular vote favoring Bush (it did not waiver), and to monitor THB for reassurances on Florida and Ohio, all of which turned out to be on the money.

Penultimately, we chided the MSM for its unending, overt bias against Bush. On every morning news program, and every nightly news program it was one relentless attack after another, unabashed bias, with no attempt at balance, and from those who purported to be "fair and balanced" as well. In the end, we said it was a loss for Kerry and MSM, and a victory for Bush and the Blogosphere. We were not alone in that conclusion, and I'm sure we'll hear and read more of this in the weeks to come. But for now, we turn to Peggy Noonan from today's (Thursday's) WSJ:

"But I do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM, the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a bit of pro-liberal mischief--CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS's "60 Minutes" attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before the election--the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country."

Bravo Brother Bloggers!

Finally, we commend you to an excellent post in THB which offers an outstanding post election analysis which you can read here.