Well, turns out the skeptics were right. The polls were biased. Only problem was they were biased in favor of Romney. See below.
Here's a chart of all the final average D-R polling margins for the swing and swing-ish states. The poll numbers are the raw averages from Nate Silver's final post, without his secret 'adjustment' sauce added. I compare them to the actual margins in those states:
State Ave. Poll Margin Actual Margin Difference
--------------------------------------------------------
CO 1.9 4.7 2.8
FL -0.7 0.6 1.3
IA 2.6 5.6 3.0
MI 4.7 8.3 3.6
NV 3.6 6.6 3.0
NH 2.6 5.7 3.1
NC -1.9 -2.2 -0.3
OH 3.0 1.9 -1.1
PA 4.6 5.1 0.5
VA 1.3 3.0 1.7
WI 4.3 6.7 2.4
-----
Average 1.8
National 1.6 2.3 0.7
So we see that Obama outperformed the average poll margin in 9 out of 11 states, for a total average outperformance of 1.8%. Nationally, he outperformed by .7%. Bias, just as they suspected!!!
My hunch is that the insidious source of this bias is called The Ground Game. Congrats to all who were a part of this bias!