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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

The Limbaugh Effect

By The Daily Dish
May 6 2008, 10:19 AM ET

Chait does the math:

One exit poll question asks Indiana voters who they would support in a Clinton-McCain contest. 17% of them say McCain. Of those voters, 41% say they would vote for McCain over Clinton. In other words, these voters, 7% of the Indiana electorate, voted for Clinton in the primary but have no intention of supporting her in the fall.

Now, this isn't a precise measure of the "Limbaugh effect" -- no doubt there are some Republicans who backed Obama in the primary out of anti-Clinton sentiment, but plan to vote for McCain in November. But it is a good place to start when making a ballpark estimate. And it's a sizeable number -- 7% may wind up being as big as her margin of victory.

It would be so perfect if Rush Limbaugh was the Clintons' margin of victory in Indiana. They deserve each other. To quote Orwell again:

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Oink, oink.



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