Posted on 05/08/2008 4:56:37 PM PDT by Hadean
Even as Barack Obama's campaign celebrated Tuesday's primary results, aides charged yesterday that they would have had an even stronger showing were it not for meddling by an unlikely booster of Hillary Rodham Clinton: the popular conservative radio host and longtime Clinton family nemesis Rush Limbaugh.
The impact of Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" emerged as an intriguing point of debate, particularly in Indiana, where registered voters could participate in either party's primary, and where Clinton won by a mere 14,000 votes. As he had before several recent primaries, Limbaugh encouraged listeners to vote for Clinton to "bloody up Obama politically" and prolong the Democratic fight.
Limbaugh crowed about the success of his ploy all day Tuesday, featuring on-air testimonials from voters in Indiana and North Carolina who recounted their illicit pleasure in casting a vote for Clinton. "Some of the people show up and they ask for a Democrat ballot, and the poll worker says, 'Why, what are you going to do?' He says, 'Operation Chaos,' and they just laugh," Limbaugh said Tuesday.
But Limbaugh called off the operation yesterday, saying he wants Obama to be the party's pick, because "I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees."
He added: "He can get effete snobs, he can get wealthy academics, he can get the young, and he can get the black vote, but Democrats do not win with that."
The Obama campaign and many of its supporters condemned Limbaugh's intervention tactic yesterday, calling it a major factor in Clinton's narrow Hoosier State win.
"Rush Limbaugh was tampering with the primary, and the GOP has clearly declared that it wants Hillary Clinton as the candidate," Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), an Obama supporter, told reporters on a conference call.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Rush has gotten in their heads, LOL! It’s like watching the San Antonio Spurs psyche out the Phoenix Suns.
Go Rush!
Gotta love the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal
This gets funnier every day! If either of those two jughead’s amounted to anything substantial Operation Chaos would have fizzled.
An article that quotes John Kerry with no mention of his Vietnam service? What bad journalism!
Indiana was an OPEN primary. There was nothing illicit about it.
Heck, operation chaos is even getting into the polls. I know that I would tell the pollsters that I voted for Obama even if I voted for Hillary.....maximum chaos. I suspect that most, if not all operatives would do the same...hence, the polls are suspect too.
>> As he had before several recent primaries, Limbaugh encouraged listeners to vote for Clinton to “bloody up Obama politically” and prolong the Democratic fight.
Hot damn — they actually got the mission of Operation Chaos correct. Its been generally reported that conservatives were aiming for a HC nomination. The truth is, we just want a limping Democrat candidate ... we don’t care which one.
And — its been a rousing success for the most part. Formerly Messianic Obama is now a run-of-the-mill inexperienced elitist politician with questionable judgement and a laudry list of obnoxious cohorts.
Where I think OC has failed is in bloodying HC — she’s actually a stronger candidate now than before the Operation began. Not that it matters — she’s not likely to win, and if she is nominated, it’ll tear her party apart at the seams.
Right on, El Commandante of Chaos.
H
Ha!
That's just what they WANT you to think, John!
Sucker.....
That's what scandalized me, OC bringing her from the grave.
I think the initial motive was to nyah-nyah and torment the Clintons by saying 'awwwww... Y'all ain't doing too good, lemme help out here'.
Once OC demonstrably boosted Hillary, he yanked the rug out with the directive to start supporting Obama, kicking both the Clintons and McCain in the teeth again.
I approve of *icking with the Clintons wherever possible, but playing chicken with the office of POTUS was just too much risk at the time, although I have enjoyed it immensely, when I wasn't white-knuckled.
I didn't know...
I can’t wait for the part of Operation Chaos where Rush convinces Republicans to cross over and vote for McQueeg.
Sure he can, he's nigh-on to Godlike.
Folks have shrines in their homes and such.
And speaking of the Spurs, go Hornets!
And while they’re investigating that, would they also look into the reason we got McCain as our nominee?
Rush said that the Chaos operatives can still vote for Hillary, but he has been so effective in disturbing the Dems' peace of mind and splitting their party, that he doesn't have to rely on Operation Chaos any further.
Rush planted the seed of chaos in the Democrat Party, and it is now a thorny vine entwining and causing pain to the liberals.
So whats taking the RATS so long to nominate Obama ????
its prettty obvious what happening within the RAT leadership. The RATS are closet racist and they never expected the Magic Negro to be where he is. He was only supposed to be a token to be displayed and thus proving that RATs are the tolerent ones. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. The RAT leadership is trying to figure out how to get Hillary the nomination without tearing the party apart. They may just have to throw away the black vote and rely on the MSM to decimate McCain in order to obtain the moderate votes. The RATS know they dont need the black vote and are willing to burn that bridge. As Hillary says, I dont need no black votes, so its to the back of the RAT bus for the negros.
He can take credit to the extent that his boost to Hillary kept her alive, and able to continually attack Obama.
If this had ended two months ago, we’d have not yet heard the names Wright or Ayers.
Not only that, but Obama has been slammed hard BY HIS OWN PARTY. McCain doesn’t get the bad rap for “negative campaigning”, and there is now considerable dissent within the Party ranks. The Hill supporters may split if she doesn’t get nominated — the Obama supporters will almost certainly split if he doesn’t get nominated. Obama’s been shot down off his perch as the “post-racial” Messiah candidate ... and Hillary did it ALL before the Republicans even fired a shot.
H
My thought was that the initial motive was to allow Hillary to tear Obama apart before McCain even fired a shot. Overall, I think it was as successful as it could have been ... it revived HC enough to allow her to take shots at Obama all the way to the convention, but didn’t revive her enough that she could actually win. We all know that the Clintons are ruthless politically ... we simply used that ruthlessness to our advantage, to tear apart their eventual candidate and drive wedges deep into the Democrat base.
Thus, McCain faces the weakest possible Democrat candidate — a weakened Obama that’s already been through the Clinton machine wringer. Nice.
H
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