Sabato's mask was ripped off in the runup to the 2004 election.
Even before. Sabato wasn't exactly "impartial" during the Impeachment of Bubba. Think back on it.
To folks who live in Virginia, Sabato's mask was ripped off looooong before that. When he was at VCU he was leaning pretty far left in his predictions and analysis, and that was many years ago (back in the Doug Wilder days, I think). I wasn't even that politically active when I lived here 10-15 years ago, and I knew even back then that Sabato was a liberal and slanted things accordingly. I was rather surprised to hear that he'd moved up to UVa and had become a media "go-to" guy on politics, considering his track record here was never all that great.
}:-)4