The author uses the word "objectivity" when the right word is "subjectivity". 'savvy', 'news sense', 'gut feeling' are never objective. The author himself says so a few sentences later:
Where political journalists’ information is evaluated through a subjective and nebulous professional/cultural sense of judgment.
And yet, he concludes by going back to "objectivity" :
When journalistic objectivity is confronted with scientific objectivity, its circuits are fried.
The bottom line is: this is the age-old war between what I'd call 'science' (Silver, given his methods) and 'art' ( the journalists ).