Barnicle seemed to have more than just a hunch, pointing to 1 p.m. rather than the 10 a.m. time frame that the Kerry campaign offered last night as the time when they'd first comment on the election results.

Barnicle said the unnamed staffers he spoke to sounded resigned to the Bush win, but that the candidate didn't want to appear to be throwing in the towel until they had an opportunity to throughly review the Ohio tally in "the harsh light of day."

Early morning numbers showed Bush with a national popular vote margin of more than 3 million and a margin of 134,000 votes over Kerry in the Buckeye state.

Editor's note: