By now everyone knows that the mischievous imp, Rush Limbaugh, popular, conservative radio talk show host had been encouraging Republican voters to vote for Hillary Clinton in last night's primaries, and his reason was to keep the battle in Democratic party alive and ripping each other up.
Many callers into Rush's show claimed to have done exactly as he asked.
The numbers are in for Texas and they show that Obama won the Republican vote 52-47.
Clinton won the Texas primary by approximately 98,000 votes out of 2.8 million cast. If the exits are right, anywhere from 252,000 to 257,000 of those voters were Republicans.
Overall, Clinton won Texas by a little less than 100,000 votes.
Now, no one can actually credit Limbaugh with the conservatives turning out and voting in the Democratic primary, many of which gave a variety of different reasons for doing so, but the whole purpose of Rush's entreaty to Republican voters was, "We need Barack Obama bloodied up politically, and it's obvious that the Republicans are not going to do it and don't have the stomach for it, as you probably know. We're getting all kinds of memos from the RNC, saying we're not going to be critical there. Mark McKinnon of McCain's campaign says he'll quit if they get critical over Obama. This is the presidency of the United States we're talking about. I want our party to win. I want the Democrats to lose. They're in the midst of tearing themselves apart right now. It is fascinating to watch, and it's all going to stop if Hillary loses. So, yeah, I'm asking people to cross over and, if they can stomach it -- I know it's a difficult thing to do, to vote for a Clinton, but it will sustain this soap opera, and it's something I think we need. It would be fun, too."
So, even though no one is claiming that Rush made a difference and no one is asserting that an unprecedented amount of Republicans showed up and voted in the Democratic primaries because of anything Rush said, the end game gave Rush Limbaugh exactly what he wanted, whether he had a hand in it or not.
Hillary Clinton is still in the race, and with these latest three wins, the chances of her dropping out are about zero, Barack Obama is still leading in the delegate count and the Democratic party leaders are still worrying about what a long battle between Clinton and Obama will do to the party as a whole.
Either way, I can just see Rush Limbaugh right about now, cackling with glee.
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