Sunday, March 23, 2008

How about both sides quit playing games with primary voting...

In the category of "if it's wrong it's wrong", I'm having a hard time getting all worked up about Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" because it would be hypocritical to do so without mentioning it's really no different from what Marcos Moulitsas suggested that Democrat should do in the Michigan primary. Even if you buy the justification that kos suggested in Let's have some fun in Michigan:
In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes. In 1988, Republican voters again crossed over, helping Jesse Jackson win the Democratic primary, helping rack up big margins for Jackson in Republican precincts. (Michigan Republicans can clearly be counted on to practice the worst of racial politics.) In 1998, Republicans helped Jack Kevorkian's lawyer -- quack Geoffrey Feiger -- win his Democratic primary, thus guaranteeing their hold on the governor's mansion that year.

Talking about indicting Rush Limbaugh is about the same as talking about Markos and voter fraud. If they are really going to go after Limbaugh, then they should really go after Moulitsas and they should go after allll of the voters who did so. How do you determine that? It's almost impossible unless someone has blatantly admitted, "I committed voter fraud".

2 comments:

Dan said...

As a Conservative Republican, I relish the chaos occuring in the Democratic Party. Gaming the primary system, a tactic of both parties, as you noted fair and balanced :), only makes it all the more interesting. The Republicans presently appear to have it all together, while the Dems are in disarray.

Unknown said...

Interesting, yes but the downside for Republicans is with the Democrats still in the headlines it's difficult for the Republican candidate to get anyone's attention, with the exception of when he makes a gaffe.

Some of the Democrat on Democrat bashing will be used against them, how large of an impact that has depends on which one of the two ends up being picked in Denver. I really think that those that believe Obama will be the harder of the two to beat have that wrong, but time will tell.

I do agree though with the past history of "primary mischief" if they are going to really put an end to this where it's claimed to be illegal then they have to either do it to both sides or not at all. Most of the republicans I know here in Toledo that switched over to vote Democratic did not do so because of "Operation Chaos", they based their decision on race or sex or an extreme dislike of John McCain. I do know a few who did so to purposely seek to make sure that Hillary stayed in the race, but Obama did quite a few mailings to Republicans in this area to try to get their vote.