This is the same type of logic that had Marty plugging the now-President of Argentina simply because she made an anti-Hillary dig.  

Ignoring the GOP "crossover" types that Glen Reynolds has linked to, who say they voted for Hillary Clinton because while they favor McCain if he loses they'd prefer Hillary to Obama, ignoring that such "strategic crossover voting" has never come to anything in the past, ignoring that the Dem primary has received record turnout and attention and maybe some Republicans (especially loosely affiliated ones) might be voting because they have no primary and want to be in on the action, ignoring that Limbaugh devotees barely turned out to oppose John McCain in their own primaries, and ignoring that Limbaugh-followers allegedly hate John McCain and now are supposed to be going out of their way to support him and ignoring all the state and local races in their primary, and most of all:

ignoring that OBAMA TO HIS CREDIT HAS BEEN WINNING LARGE CROSSOVER REPUBLICAN SUPPORT, Marty would have us believe it was these 100,000 votes that all went to Hillary and put her over the top.  

Mr P, when can we expect your next installment on Berserker Wright and Obama?

Curious to hear your thoughts on the contradiction between Obama's glorious riffs on post-partisan post-racial post-political politics and the obvious fact that Obama cozied up to this goof in order to vault himself over other afr-amer pols desiring cred and votes from ignorant (and  not-so-ignorant) southside Chicago afr-amer voters.

The Wright suck-up shows that he's a politician. He trolls for votes like any other. NTTAWWT, but don't you find all the hype and blather and BS about his being above politics just a little irritating?

Yesterday Limbaugh was crowing about his role in helping Hillary. He loves reading the press clippings and gloating about the success of what he calls "Operation Chaos", his effort to keep the Clintons afloat.

(The only good things about all of this is that historians will have remarkable video and audio to work with as they study the destruction of Obama.)

What's behind the unholy trinity of Bill, Rush, and Hillary?

The enemy of my enemy is very white. That crusty white fella sleepin' at the end of the bar is finally awake! Good job, Bill! Way to go, Rush!

Those poor and poorly educated white voters aren't goin' to turn this country over to any uppity black man!

Prepare yourself for the McCain presidency.

Well said lymon.  When Obama gets cross-over or independent votes, it's attributed to his appeal.  If Hillary does the same, it's because of Rush Limbaugh.

I will agree with Mr. Peretz on one point:   although I support Clinton, I fear that she is the weaker of the two in the general election.  Obama handled the Wright controversy masterfully and on a purely political level, rather negates the Clinton assertion that Obama can't handle Republican attacks.  GOP attacks such as the video discussed on another thread are sophmoric in comparison to yesterday's speech.

fou - McCain is probably seriously ill. He keeps making ridiculous gaffes about stuff he knows insisde and out. When I saw him last summer in CA he confused India and Indonesia, said people in Iraq spoke "Iraqi", confused oil and gas prices.

Heaven help us all.

"Well, it turns out that roughly 119,000 Republicans voted in the Texas primary, which is an "open" primary, for Hillary herself. Thus, her margin was almost all from voters who cast their ballots for her on instructions from Rush Limbaugh who believes -- soundly, I think -- that she is, by far, the weakest nominee the Democrats can choose."

Come on Marty, as many Democrats voted for McCain in the primaries.

Besides, if Limbaugh had as much influence on the people who listen to him McCain whom he hates would never have won the Republican nomination.

However, keep lambasting Hillary, your posts though wrong are very amusing.

fougasseu said: "Yesterday Limbaugh was crowing about his role in helping Hillary."

Here is another Limbaugh listener who isn't swayed by the fat man with the big mouth.

First of all, exit polls in Texas showed Obama winning among Republicans 53-46, so this argument is pretty doubtful on its face.  Where Hillary won Republicans recently was in Mississippi, which Obama won in a landslide anyway

Second, I agree with Lymon.  This is an oversimplification on the part of Marty and others who have made this argument.  What the exit polls tell us (or, more accurately, what they allow us to estimate) is the proportion of Republicans that voted for Clinton and Obama.  What they do not tell us is *why* they voted that way.  Members of one party voting in the other's primary likely have a variety of different reasons for doing so.  Some want to nominate the candidate they feel is a better choice for the country, while others want to nominate the candidate they think will be easiest to beat.  There is an unknown mixture of these groups voting, so we have no real evidence as to whether Rush had any impact.  It is unjustified to point to Obama's strength among Republicans in earlier contests as a sign of strength, and Hillary's strength among Republicans more recently as a sign of weakness.  It's a "heads I win, tails you lose" setup.

What was the gender breakout of the crossover Repubs who voted for HRC?

Dub -- I agree about Obama being the more electable of the two, with one qualifier: when I look at the electoral map, I can see a scenario where Obama wins the popular vote by a decent margin but looses the electoral college (imagine huge margins in California/NY/Illinois, better than usual showings in western red states but still losing, and then narrow losses in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.  With Clinton I more of what we're used to seeing but don't know if she can unify the base and make-up for her negatives enough to eek out a win.  They have such completely different dynamics.  

There's probably a modicum of strategic voting going on, but the "LImbaugh threw Texas to Hillary" theory is soooo implausible, and Marty is sooooo knee-jerk in leeping on anything anti-Clinton.  Hillary could say she believes in evolution and Marty would be linking to Creationism scientists.

I don't find this implausible at all. In 1989 in Philadelphia, a lot Republicans crossed over for the Democratic mayoral primary to vote for John Street, widely believed to be the easiest Democratic candidate for a Republican--Sam Katz--to beat.  Street barely squeaked out a victory that year; Katz's did unusually well for a Republican in this city.

If Marty's premise is true it would almost make me wish for a Hillary victory in November just to see the look on Rush Limbaugh's face, as well as whatever idiot listened to him. I said almost.

Astute point, lymon.  I've thought the same thing.  But it does seem odd that so many Repubs, to whom the word Hillary is basically akin to "nun-rape", would just go and vote for her.   That doesn't add up to me.  If they did without any electoral mischief in mind (which assuredly some did), it is to her credit.

The logic of this post is laughable. So Obama, the guy with great cross-over potential, gets no Republican votes, while Hillary gets ALL Republican votes?

Ok Marty.

This is where I begin to have problems with TNR writers overt championing of Obama. Generally, I am okay with the fact that journalists here have their preferences and voice them, however noisily. But the willingness to interpret every little instance in a manner favorable to him irritates me when it starts to be stretched out too thin. If crossover Republicans were voting for Obama, would GOP mischief still be suspected? Au contraire, I suspect TNR bloggers would be swooning over his wide partisan appeal, to say nothing of the fact that they would also be salivating over yet another nail seemingly being inserted in the Clinton coffin.

If Republicans vote for Obama, it is because they like him. If they vote for Hillary, it is because they want McCain to be faced with a less formidable candidate in the general election. Nothing like objective journalistic analysis, I suppose.