By now you’re already aware, Rush limbaugh has been encouraging conservatives to crossover for the primaries and vote for Hillary Clinton. He’s been beating the drum since Obama’s victory in Wisconsin. On March 4 (Clinton’s supposed “comeback” day), Bill Clinton even appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s show. That “Pimp Yourself” banner is from Rush Limbaugh’s website. Here’s the philosophy in Limbaugh’s words:

“We need Barack Obama bloodied up politically . . . I’m asking people to cross over and, if they can stomach it — I know it’s a difficult thing to do, to vote for a Clinton, but it will sustain this soap opera.” -Rush Limbaugh

March 4: The Limbaugh-Effect in Texas

In Texas, the tactic worked. Despite disapproval ratings at or near 50 percent, Hillary Clinton closed the gap among Republicans.

“Barack Obama, among Republicans, was leading in other open primary states by margins of 20 points. States like Virginia, other states, big margins, up to 20 points. In this, self-identified Republicans, I think he won by, what, five or six points?”
-Laura Ingraham on the O’Reilly Factor

There were numerous anecdotes reported, here’s an example:

Laura Kreissl, an accounting professor who was volunteering at precinct 307 in Canyon, a town 20 miles south of Amarillo, said she was “stunned” when the first person she checked in said “Rush Limbaugh sent me”.

“He said: ‘I am voting for Hillary Clinton but I want to see the Democrats implode’. As I sat there for 12 hours you hear people rattling on, and a great many mentioned Rush Limbaugh,” she said.

“We didn’t ask them anything. All we would say is ‘are you aware this is the Democratic primary?’, because we were sitting near the Republican section.”

March 11: The Limbaugh-Effect in Mississippi

Now we have the results of the Mississippi primary, and the effects of this strategy are dramatic. Although Obama won over 61 percent of the Democratic primary votes, have a look at the votes of self-identified Republicans:

Hillary Clinton wins a whopping 75 percent of the Republicans. Has her crossover appeal radically improved, despite her disapproval ratings holding steady? Or are these, as seems more likely, strategic votes designed to cause chaos in the Democratic party?

The arrow is drawing your attention to the oddity that 15 percent of Hillary Clinton’s votes would be unsatisfied by her winning the nomination. (To put that in perspective, only 4 percent of Mississippi’s Obama supporters would be unsatisfied by an Obama nomination.) As a DailyKos article pointed out, it could be that those 15 percent were choosing, in their minds, the lesser of two evils. But something here still smells like shenanigans. Here’s another interesting lesson:

Of those who have a strongly favorable opinion of John McCain, seventy percent voted for Hillary Clinton. To me, that’s strikingly high.

It bears reminding that the goal here is the presidency, not the Democratic nomination. To keep the nomination fight alive, Clinton’s campaign has actively solicited support from sources she cannot hope to carry in a general election (appearing, for example, on the 700 Club), while her disapproval ratings have held steady. Maybe it’s too much to ask that Clinton call it quits. I know people find it endearing that she presses on, despite seemingly insurmountable hurdles (delegate math, a democratically-elected nominee, etc.). But I would hope, at the very least, that these crossover votes would give her supporters pause. This is like letting UCLA’s football team choose USC’s coach.

Update: How much of an impact did strategic voting have in terms of delegates? According to Poblano’s numbers at Daily Kos:

If Obama had an extra 4% of the vote statewide . . . the delegate split would have been 24-9 rather than 19-14.

Update II (fun historical factoid): Once upon a time (1997), political parties sued over California’s adoption of Proposition 198, an initiative that allowed for blanket primaries. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, California Democratic Party v. Jones. One of the arguments against blanket primaries was the fear that folks would cross party lines to vote for a candidate perceived as the weakest on the other side. They called experts to testify about the possibility, and a certain Professor Donald Olson of the University of Washington-Seattle concluded that it was very unlikely the necessary historical factors would ever be present for this to be a problem. He listed four improbable factors, and man do they sound like the current state of the race:

Technically defined, raiding would occur where partisan voters of party X cross-over in sufficient numbers to help select the weakest or most vulnerable candidate in party Y. The requirements for this form of electoral subterfuge are:

1. the absence of a meaningful primary contest in party X;
2. provision of sufficient information to identify the weaker and most vulnerable potential opponent in party Y;
3. concerted action by a large enough bloc of voters in party X to influence the outcome in the primary of party Y; and
4. the abandonment of traditional party loyalties by partisan voters to enter the opponent’s primary.

Update III (follow-up reading):

• DailyKos: The Limbaugh Effect in Mississippi, Texas, and Ohio
• Huffingtonpost: Mississippi: ‘Limbaugh Effect’ Softens Blow For Hillary Clinton
• Alternet: Obama Wins Big in Mississippi Despite ‘Limbaugh Effect’

Tags: Elections //