Back in 2008, Rush Limbaugh encouraged his listeners, his CONSERVATIVE TEA PARTY listeners, to vote for Hillary Clinton in Texas Primary elections. (h/t to Outside the Beltway)
From CNN:
Limbaugh has been actively urging his Texas listeners to cross over and vote for Clinton in that state's open primary Tuesday, arguing it helps the Republicans if the Democratic race remains unsettled for weeks to come.
"I want Hillary to stay in this...this is too good a soap opera," Limbaugh told fellow conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham on Fox News Friday. He reiterated the comments on his Monday show and replayed the exchange with Ingram.
And it wasn't only Rush Limp-bow who advocated this; it was being touted all over right wing media, and the right wing blogosphere, including here in Minnesota. It was advocated as well by the radical right wing nuts during the wisconsin recalls during 2011, where not only was voting as a false partisan advocated, but running false candidates as Democrats occurred.
The right likes dirty politics. The values they practice are dishonesty and misrepresentation, not the values to which they give empty lip service.
So of course, since conservatives believe things which are factually false on a regular basis, and also claim to be victims in the most annoyingly whiney manner possible, the radical right is having a complete meltdown that their Mississippis Teabagger candidate lost.
Black voters turned out for the lesser of two evils, Thad Cochrane. Mississippi apparently has a statute that requires voters to intend to vote for the candidate in the general election that you vote for in the primary; it is part of the old Jim Crow era laws.
The logical problem with this old racist voter suppression intended law is that it is unenforceable. First of all, it tries to police something that cannot be proven - intent. Since no one knows, or can know, who any individual voter casts a ballot for in a primary race, and no one knows or can know who one casts a ballot for in the general election either (the essence of a secret ballot), it would seem this law in unenforceable.
DID the Cochrane campaign and others advocate that black Democrats in Mississippi turn out for Cochrane? It appears so. But how can anyone, now or later, prove that these voters did not, on the aay they voted, NOT intend to vote for him in the general election --- or know who they did or did not vote for in that voting booth?
The simple answer is that while the losing candidate McDaniel may have a valid suspicion that Dems disliked him so much they turned out to vote him down, that is all he has -- a suspicion. He has no proof that can stand up in a court of law, even a crooked deeps south 'South'ron' court, without risking throwing out that old Jim Crow law as unconstitutional and with little chance of overturning the primary election. Those democratic voters, especially those of color, have been the ACTUAL victims of radical right wing extremist policies and laws for a LOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGG long time in the south; they are utterly entitled to throw a wrench into the Tea Party works.
Will this affect other radical right wing nut primaries? Probably so, but it is excellent evidence that the radical right is being fractured off of the GOP, and that there are strong forces, organized forces pulling the GOP back from the dangerously far right fringes, back towards the center again.
In the meantime, it is tremendous fun to see the right hoist with their own petard, it is tremendously amusing to watch the radical right nasty anduglies reap what they sewed.
They have it coming, Rush et al. Karma is indeed a b*tch, and she bit them where it hurts.
Howl, Rush! HOWL! You and all the rest like you.
