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torekp comments on 1001 PredictionBook Nights - Less Wrong
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Since the study focused on the period around the 2008 elections, which the Democrats won on nearly all levels, and since most pundits tend to be biased towards believing that what they wish would happen will happen, it's not surprising that liberals' predictions did better and some conservatives scored worse than random. I suspect we'd see the trend go the other way for say predictions about the 2010 midterms. The fundamental problem is that the predictions weren't independent.
Since the correlation between liberalism and correctness was weak, most pundits probably wouldn't gain or lose much score in a more politically-average year. In Krugman's case, for example, most of the scored predictions were economic not political forecasts. In Cal Thomas's case however, your explanation might basically work.
True, of course in Krugman's case I suspect most of his predictions amounted to predicting that the financial crisis was going to be really but, and thus were also correlated.
Another LW discussion of Krugman's alleged accuracy pointed both here and to a spreadsheet with the actual predictions. About half of his predictions did indeed amount to saying that the financial crisis was going to be really bad. There were some political ones too but they weren't of the "my team will win" form, and he did well on those as well.