The Limbaugh Effect

Rush Limbaugh thinks he had a hand in the Indiana primary.

As he had before several recent primaries, Limbaugh encouraged listeners to vote for Clinton to "bloody up Obama politically" and prolong the Democratic fight.

Limbaugh crowed about the success of his ploy all day Tuesday, featuring on-air testimonials from voters in Indiana and North Carolina who recounted their illicit pleasure in casting a vote for Clinton. "Some of the people show up and they ask for a Democrat ballot, and the poll worker says, 'Why, what are you going to do?' He says, 'Operation Chaos,' and they just laugh," Limbaugh said Tuesday.

But Limbaugh called off the operation yesterday, saying he wants Obama to be the party's pick, because "I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees."

He added: "He can get effete snobs, he can get wealthy academics, he can get the young, and he can get the black vote, but Democrats do not win with that."

Back before the Michigan primary -- remember that? -- some leftie bloggers encouraged their readers in Michigan to try the same thing: get Democrats to vote for Romney so he would become the GOP nominee. It had minimum effect, obviously, probably because very few Democrats are willing to throw away their vote for the sake of mischief.

Rush can gloat all he wants, but all this kind of frat-boy prank does is prove that the only way he thinks that the Republicans can win is by cheating.

(Cross-posted.)