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He got lucky? Sigh. He determined the distribution of probabilities and we placed a bet for him, in the currency of his reputation.

The credit should go to Nate for being graceful under the fire from a hostile campaign and a self-righteous punditocracy. Credit to the Times for giving a talented, disciplined, genuinely decent stathead a national platform and establishment credibility. Credit to the organizations doing the state polls which Nate aggregated, and to the various levels of transparency and consistency which allowed Nate to usefully judge their merits. Credit to Major League Baseball, Billy Beane, Daniel Okrent, Bill James, and Michael Lewis for inspiring, influencing, and popularizing his methods and manners. Credit to everyone who ever used clear-eyed statistical analysis to win their fantasy league. Credit to the universe, for having a reliable tendency to exhibit scalar self-similarities.

And credit to us, for caring enough to pay attention.

timrigid @ volokh.com