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The Brazile-Begala smackdown
Is Obama's coalition just "eggheads and African-Americans"? Is Clinton's emphasis on "Joe and Jane Sixpack" excluding black blue-collar Democrats? A frank exchange of views on CNN.
Joan Walsh [2008-05-07]

  • @ Joan

    I hope you will post the transcript of your Hardball appearance, because there is so much I missed when it was broadcast (due, as I said, to the conversation which was competing for my attention.) I think a transcript would refresh my memory on other points which I overlooked in my first post on the subject.

    Perhaps you can tell me whether I am accurately remembering your comments on another topic: someone raised the Limbaugh Operation Chaos voters, Republicans who voted for Clinton in order to prolong the contest for the nomination. The estimate was that as few as 7 percent, or as many as 10 percent, of the votes cast in Indiana came from Republicans. Is that accurate? And the next estimate was that half or slightly more than half these votes went to Clinton? Fifty-five percent? Still accurate?

    Your reply was that the Limbaugh effect was not a factor, because it contributed to both candidates more or less equally. Still accurate?

    But the panel, as I recall, did not agree with your conclusion, Matthews pointing out that Obama has drawn a legitimate crossover vote from Republicans in all of the primaries, an effect Clinton has not had. I do not remember, and perhaps the transcript will show, whether anyone pointed out that Limbaugh's voters were told to vote for Clinton.

    I think that did come up. My sense was that in your dismissal of the Operation Chaos effect, you didn't address the obvious, which is that Republicans voting for Obama did so on their own, while those voting did so in order to prolong the Clinton candidacy because Limbaugh has been urging them to. Limbaugh has not been telling Republicans to vote for either candidate. He has been absolutely clear and emphatic that the Chaos vote is a Clinton vote.

    So the Limbaugh effect is an issue worth revisiting. Using the lowest of the estimated numbers, half of 7 percent of votes cast, or 3 1/2 percent, went to Clinton on this basis.

    If true, the Clinton margin of victory, less than 2 percent of votes cast, depends on Limbaugh.

    Is my memory right in thinking that you didn't think this was an issue?

    -- HealThisNation
    [Read HealThisNation's other letters]
    Thursday, May 8, 2008 07:50 AM
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