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Do not let Limbaugh pick the president
Financial Times ^ | May 7 2008 19:05 | Last updated: May 7 2008 19:05 | Jurek Martin

Posted on 05/07/2008 9:14:57 PM PDT by Fred

Ihad been thinking for some time that more attention should be paid to Rush Limbaugh – not to what he says, because it is pretty much the same old rightwing bombast he has been selling for 25 years, but to what he has been urging his legion of 20m similarly inclined radio listeners to do.

This is, wherever state laws allows, that they should register in a Democratic party primary and cast a vote for Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama, the front-runner to be the Democratic presidential nominee. He calls it “operation chaos” and he has been revelling in its claimed success, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which Mrs Clin­ton, the senator from New York, won.

This strategy may have met its Waterloo in Indiana. Even though the Limbaugh factor may have handed Mrs Clinton her margin of victory on Tuesday night, it was so wafer-thin – at a 2 per cent margin – as to be immediately deemed insufficient. It certainly did not work in North Carolina, which Mr Obama won comfortably, and where “crossover” voting for the unaffiliated is allowed, but only with complicated strings attached.

I actually do listen to Mr Limbaugh, preferably on the sanitised car radio, which leaves no trace that a liberal wife could decode. I do so on the Flashman principle that you should always know what the enemy is thinking, even if he talks in tongues, and especially if he is smarter and more entertaining than the average conservative, which Mr Limbaugh certainly is.

And you can see the point of operation chaos from his vantage point, both in the short and longer term. If he believes Mrs Clinton would be the weaker candidate against Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, he can beat up on her until the first Tuesday in November and his ends will have been served if she loses. If she becomes the next president, then he can assault her much as he did her husband for his eight years in office, however long she lasts, maintaining his audience ratings in the process.

Finally, if his strategy of operation chaos does not work out and Mr Obama becomes the nominee, which is now even more likely with his North Carolina victory, then he can ratchet up his harangues against “garden variety liberals” (his standard description of the Illinois senator) who would sell the country down the river and into the slavery of the Chinese.

I think even Mr Limbaugh would concede he has never been Mr McCain’s greatest fan. He preferred Rudy Giuliani early on, with qualifications, and then shifted, with zero enthusiasm, to Mitt Romney, because he was not Mr McCain, whom he considers an apostate from his authorised version of conservatism. But now he is stuck with the Arizona senator.

Now, all this might be fine theory if Mrs Clinton were not playing to his audience, as she reinvents herself from the “garden variety liberal” she certainly was into the San Francisco-denigratin’, huntin,’ shootin’ and shot-drinkin’ mama that is her new political persona. It is not just her espousal of the populist idea of a holiday from the federal petrol tax, also advocated by her vodka shot-drinkin’ friend, Mr McCain, and derided by every economist who has ever been to any known university (including the lawyer, Mr Obama).

It is also the fact that she chose to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s television show on the Fox network. For those who live in Luxembourg or Borneo, Mr O’Reilly is Mr Limbaugh minus several IQ points. He has devoted much of his career, like Mr Limbaugh, to eviscerating the Clintons, but now his blue-collar persona is convenient to her.

All that said, the Limbaugh-O’Reilly-Clinton axis, one that can only have been drawn up on the dark side of the moon where strange bedfellows meet, has cut Mr Obama deeply, if not necessarily fatally as Tuesday’s primaries still leave him holding the whip hand.

There is something compelling about Mr Obama’s cerebral cool, his refusal to play the political game as it is conventionally played. But I am not the audience, even if I could vote, that the game is being played for.

We are slicing and dicing the great American community as it has never been sliced and diced before. Every component part is in play – black, white, men, women, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, old, young, Protestant, Catholic, evangelical, Jew and non-believer. Every primary exit poll, which, at least, purports neutrality if not the gospel, carves up the apparent electoral preferences until our minds boggle.

Does, for example, Mr Obama’s long association with his pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, matter or not? Old people say it does, the polls tell us, young people say it does not. And then there is Mr McCain’s relationship with the Rev John Hagge, another “man of the cloth” prone to views that are not in the gospel either.

And when Mr Limbaugh goes on a rant, as he did this week, about “Jerry” Wright allegedly counselling a troubled couple in his church and then marrying the wife after their divorce, then I have to wonder where the war in Iraq, the looming financial crunch and everything else that is out of kilter in this country feature in the election.

Ultimately, the next president will be the one with whom America feels more comfortable and who has a vision for tomorrow not yesterday. I do not think Mr Limbaugh, or operation chaos, figures in that, but I may be wrong.

The writer was twice the FT’s Washington bureau chief

onohana@aol.com


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; chaos; clueless; crossovervote; financialtimes; jurekmartin; obamatruthfile; operationchaos; rush
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To: upsdriver
I'm definitely voting for McCain. It's a no-brainer. What's worse than an Obama presidency? An Obama presidency with a sweeping mandate. We had a primary. We've got a nominee. Sensible republicans will vote for McCain. Sore losers will write in their favorite 1 per center.

What's funny to me is how GWB was somehow not objectionable, even though he supports amnesty as much as McCain, he signed CFR into law, he's a big spender--a purist could easily sit out EVERY election. Why so shocked to have an imperfect candidate? It's all we ever get.

121 posted on 05/08/2008 5:56:05 AM PDT by Huck ("Real" conservatives support OBAMA in 08 (that's how you know Im not a real conservative))
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To: Huck
Most of the “I'll never vote for McCaininites” don't care so much for finding the perfect candidate as much as they absolutely love being able to bellow about how cool, smart and conservative they are as they roost on their rumps in November and are either too stupid or too selfish to understand they did their part to elect Obama.
122 posted on 05/08/2008 6:00:02 AM PDT by Hegewisch Dupa
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To: Antonio C
You are so wrong. We were hit by cross over voters and all the split voting with so many RNC runners. You are one of those Freepers that only reads a narrow group of news posted on the FR. The cross over news was printed here during the early start of the primaries. We were hit with their operation chaos first. The outcome was McCain.
123 posted on 05/08/2008 6:02:19 AM PDT by bmwcyle (I always rely on God and Guns in that order)
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To: Hegewisch Dupa

Amen brother.....tell it like it is! Rave on rave on.

ME Me Me Me Me...... it’s all about me, I’m purer than thou.

I call them Bitcons.....Bitter Conservatives


124 posted on 05/08/2008 6:09:09 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . The Bitcons will elect a Democrat by default)
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To: txflake
Yes, when McCain spoke at Wake Forest in NC, he thought he was in West Virginia and thanked the students and faculty of West Virginia. Interesting how many reports in MSM covered it up.

I recall President Ford's one gaffe that pushed the tide to Carter. Yet McCain keeps making them almost every time he opens his mouth. He said Putin was German, admitted he knows little about the economy, needed Lieberman to whisper answers to him about al Qaeda and Jewish holidays, plagiarized recipes from the Food Network, wants CFR to apply to others but not him, talks to himself, blatantly lies, etc.

125 posted on 05/08/2008 6:18:23 AM PDT by Dante3
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To: TN4Liberty

Rush has said every day for a month his reason for OC, and it is not about getting either candidate nominated...

...and the dittoheads buy it, hook. line, and sinker...he’s really doing it because it keeps his name in the news...and for his own personal benefit, a Hilary presidency is far juicier than tired old John McCain would ever be for conservative radio...just yesterday rushbo said Obama was the weaker candidate, and would lose worse than McGovern (a ridiculous statement BTW)...does it take a PhD to see he should then throw all his support to the messiah, by reason of the imputed trouncing...he did not, and continues not to do so, showing even rush doesn’t believe what rush is saying...


126 posted on 05/08/2008 6:19:11 AM PDT by IrishBrigade
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To: upsdriver; Fred

I hate it when that happens. Sorry about that Fred.


127 posted on 05/08/2008 8:15:58 AM PDT by MaxMax (It's not the politics I despise, It's the politicians for being so stupid..)
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To: 1035rep

I said - “No matter who “wins” in November, the Democrats will be in firm control of both houses and the White House”

You said - “Don’t count on it!”

Now, given who are the likely two candidates that will be facing off, no matter who wins the Dems will be in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. Unless you, like me are voting for a third party and maybe you are a little bit overly optimistic of you chances....I don’t see how I am wrong here.


128 posted on 05/08/2008 9:40:06 AM PDT by Grunthor (http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin445.htm)
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To: Dawnsblood

It’s better to have Republicans legally crossover vote than vote the dead as the Dems usually do to pick a candidate.


129 posted on 05/08/2008 9:45:44 AM PDT by y6162
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To: Witter

“People have been voting across the aisle during primaries for years. Why are they acting like it is a “New” thing?”

Dims have anyway and DU types always bragged about it, but the lsm never complained - oh, my no, somehow they just never did.


130 posted on 05/08/2008 9:48:54 AM PDT by Let's Roll (As usual, following a shooting spree, libs want to take guns away from those who DIDN'T do it.)
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To: peggybac
"I wasn’t aware Rush preferred Rudy early on."

I don't believe that he did. I think the writer deduces this because some, like Hannity, were so openly drooling over Rudy as the potential Republican nominee, and being a liberal, he thinks that all conservative talkers work in lock-step getting their marching orders from the RNC each morning.

131 posted on 05/08/2008 10:56:41 AM PDT by penowa
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To: Antonio C
"That is a lie. John McCain was chosen by Republican voters and is supported by Republican leaders. Spreading lies like that only makes the Democrats happy."

Have you bothered to look at any of the election data from the early primaries where crossover voting was permitted? I didn't think so.

132 posted on 05/08/2008 11:00:37 AM PDT by penowa
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To: Antonio C
"...then why didn't they all get together and form another party? Surely, if your side has so many people that would have been easy to do. It hasn't because you are lying about your numbers and you know it."

I think you McCainiacs or paid McCain supporters will discover, post November, just how many conservatives no longer will be frightened into voting for a terrible candidate (because the Democrats are worse,) holding their collective noses as McCain's mother has suggested that we do.

Why would we want to start another party? All we have to do is pick up pieces of what remains of the Republican party from the RINOs and liberals like you once McCain has lost and taken the party to its biggest defeat in years.

133 posted on 05/08/2008 11:17:49 AM PDT by penowa
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To: ModelBreaker

“Bluntly, my only interest in 2008 is preventing too big a loss in the down-ticket races.”

Second that.


134 posted on 05/08/2008 6:46:25 PM PDT by Pelham (Press 1 for English)
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To: Antonio C

We decided to turn the party over to RINO dimwits for this cycle.


135 posted on 05/08/2008 6:51:01 PM PDT by Pelham (Press 1 for English)
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To: Revelation 911

“didnt (Rush) support nafta as well ?”]

He did indeed. And he was complimented for doing so by VP Al Gore.


136 posted on 05/08/2008 6:54:38 PM PDT by Pelham (Press 1 for English)
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To: Fred

Regardless of what Jurek thinks of Rush, it is pathetic, racist, and un-American for 92+% of the black North Carolinians to vote for Brack O’Bam simply because he is black. Ask any of those idiots in NC, who voted for him, what Brack’s major life accomplishment was and they will draw a blank.


137 posted on 05/08/2008 7:02:03 PM PDT by ErieGeno
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