Not really a proper diary, but I wanted to get this out there. Did Limbaugh win it for Clinton? Scary to ponder, but there appears to be evidence for it.
From David Weigel of Reason Magazine:
In Wisconsin, Republicans made up 9 percent of the Democratic primary vote. Obama won them 72-28 over Clinton. Just as tellingly, 14 percent of primary voters said they were "conservative," and Obama won them 59-40, a bigger margin than he won with liberals or moderates. Tactical voters who said Obama stood a better chance of winning in November? They went for him 87-13.
Now, look at Ohio. Once again 9 percent of voters were Republicans, but Obama and Clinton split them evenly, 49-49. Once again, 14 percent of voters were "conservatives," and Obama and Clinton split them 48-48. (Obama did better with them than he did with liberals and moderates.) Those tactical voters who thought Obama could win gave him a 80-18 victory, a margin twelve points smaller than the margin in Wisconsin.
It's a similar story in Texas, where Limbaugh has the most listeners of any of these states. Obama won the Republican vote 52-47, but conservatives (22 percent of all voters, up from 15 percent in the Kerry-Edwards primary) went against Obama. For the first time since Super Tuesday, they were Clinton's best ideological group: She won them 53-43. And Clinton won 13 percent of the people who said Obama was the most electable candidate.
Amazing to think Bill Clinton could go on Limbaugh's show before the election without a huge uproar. How do people like Jerome Armstrong justify that? How can Media Matters complain about Rush's attacks on Hillary in the future? Once again, short term political expediency (welfare reform, NAFTA, bombing Sudan) is all the Clintons care about. Once again, they'll leave another generation with the task of trying to put the broken pieces of a progressive agenda back together.
More here:
http://reason.com/...