Thu May 08, 2008 The actual final vote totals from the Indiana Secretary of State are in at last. They show that the final contest in Indiana was even narrower than the difference popularly reported. According to the Indiana Secretary of State, the official totals were: Hillary Clinton: 637,814 50.4% Barack Obama: 626,642 49.6% The difference: 11,152 less than 1 % This difference, was almost surely caused by Rush Limbaugh and operation Chaos (who at least according to ABC made up 7% of Clinton's voting base.) Axelrod's claim that Rush won it for Hillary is accurate.
They show that the final contest in Indiana was even narrower than the difference popularly reported.
According to the Indiana Secretary of State, the official totals were:
Hillary Clinton: 637,814 50.4%
Barack Obama: 626,642 49.6%
The difference: 11,152 less than 1 %
This difference, was almost surely caused by Rush Limbaugh and operation Chaos (who at least according to ABC made up 7% of Clinton's voting base.)
Axelrod's claim that Rush won it for Hillary is accurate.
Replace accurate with "childish." Know how annoying it is when Clinton supporters try to diminish every win by Obama? Yeah.
If you want to discount "strategic" votes, you can't just pretend that only Limbaugh's disciples are an issue and every other vote is legitimate. You'd have to figure out how many McCain supporters voted for Obama because they think he's the weaker candidate. You'd have to figure out how many people voted for Obama who have no intention to vote for him in November, but simply want to see Hillary lose because they dislike her. I don't think it's possible to quantify these groups, and I think it's pretty sore-loserish (or sore-winnerish, if you prefer) to go there in the first place.
Also, progressives who help Rush Limbaugh in his quest for self-promotion are idiots. This includes John Kerry and every other Obama surrogates who has taken pains to make sure the world knows that Rush has the ability to alter a Democratic election result. Good thinking, there.
Facts are facts.
Yes, and I included a lot of them in my last post. You might consider reading it, and then for extra credit, thinking about how it benefits Obama's chances for November to continue quibbling about stupid issues like this.
Does it help Obama in any conceivable way to try and diminish the legitimacy of Hillary's win in Indiana? Of course not. But clearly they just can't help themselves.
it is well known that Limbaugh was sowing the seeds of chaos intentionally. Your points are mere conjecture.
Exactly Steve "They just can't help themselves" and that very irrational position constantly thrown in Clinton supporters face is why they suck!! and most of us are sickened by how many "uhs" and demeanor of Obama!! Dkos people in every poll they held all the way up to Edwards leaving the race had him as their choice!! and Edwards won't even endorse their so called annointed one. So just let them continue to think they don't need us!!!
Dems for a day - which wasn't sanctioned by the Obama campaign - involved getting voters who liked Obama to vote for him.
Operation Chaos involved getting people who hate Clinton to vote for her.
Big difference.
"A year ago"?! In May 2007, Obama was instructing Republicans and Independents to vote for him in the primaries but not the GE? And they remembered his instructions eight months later, when the primaries started?
So now we're back to making shit up.
If you're not making it up, then provide links to prove it. We all know Obama has reached out to Independents and Republicans. Apparently only you know that he actually made a cynical, public statement to the effect that he wanted Reps and Indys to vote for him in the primaries and didn't care if they don't support him in the General.
And only you know about it because it didn't happen.
Well, your "federal law" thing is a total fabrication; here in WI you can register at the polls on the day of the election.
The rest of your argument you've asserted several times without documentation, which is a classic hallmark of "making shit up."
Wow. Now folks are just making shit up.
It is actually possible to quantify those groups using the exit polls.
When asked who would you vote for, Clinton or McCain, 16% of respondents said McCain. Of that 16% 41% indicated they voted for Clinton in the primary. 1,274,993 votes were cast in Indiana, 16% of that is 203,998. 41% of 203,998 is 83,639 which represents about 1 in 8 Clinton voters which said they would vote McCain over Clinton in a general election.
When asked who would you vote for, Obama or McCain, 18% of respondents said McCain. Of that 18%, 12% indicated they voted for Obama in the Primary. 18% of 1,274,993 is 229,498. 12% of 229,498 is 27,539 which represents about 1 in 22 Obama voters who said they would vote for McCain over Obama in a general election.
So Chaos voters represented about 110,000 votes among 1.2 million votes cast and Chaos voters went for Clinton by about 3 to 1.
The assumption that people who are trying to monkey with an election are going to answer exit pollsters honestly seems obviously invalid.
Again, I'm having a lot of trouble seeing the brilliant political reason that it's necessary to try and delegitimize Hillary's win in Indiana, but clearly David Axelrod and John Kerry know something I don't. At some point they're going to have to stop throwing red meat to the Hillary-hating base if they want to win in November, though.
You're right, the numbers are quite possibly higher. I can't imagine someone who answered an exit poll saying they voted for a primary candidate they would not support in the general election were being anything less then honest because it's quite frankly a strange assertion to make. The analysis I did is of course bound by any margin of error in the exit poll.
I get your larger point about delegitimizing her win, though you also have to realize frustration among Obama supporters when what likely would have been a win for them was taken away. The Obama campaign has had a brutal time the last two months and a double win would have been a huge development. I still believe it's important to understand what happened as an argument to the superdelegates if nothing else.
The general consensus of the pundit-sphere seemd to be that a double win for Clinton gave her a good argument with the SDs, a split decision meant things went on unchanged, and a double win for Obama meant that Clinton's situation was hopeless and the race was over.
Tuesday night, the pundit-sphere seemed ready to count an under 2% win in IN as close enough to a loss to push things into the "It's over" category, but as the week progressed, some people (including Clinton) have instead focused on the split decision, and treated the race as still up in the air. Pointing out that Clinton won by less than 1% and that her margin of victory is less than the number of voters who voted for her over Obama, but will vote for McCain over her, is an attempt to try to push the coverage back to close enough to a double loss for Clinton that the difference doesn't matter, it's over.
I guess they feel that the risk of pissing of Clinton supporters is worth it. I don't think I agree, but so it goes.
I think that diaries like the "why did Obama lose Indiana?!?" one opened the dialog...
Was that TexasDarlin? I've stopped reading her, so I'm not sure exactly what she said.
Please. How legitimate is a win by less than one percent when the delegates are split? It's meaningless whether Rush flipped the election. The fact remains, with barely "winning" Indiana and getting spanking in NC, Hillary's campaign went down in flames. It'll be a while before everyone on the web site gets it, obviously, but this thing is over. Quibbling about things like this is stupid and the direct result of Hillary's divisive campaign. The sooner she shuts up, the sooner her sheep will see the light.
I agree that trying to diminish Clinton's victory, however small, is annoying, just as her constant attempts to diminish all of Obama's victories was, and is, annoying. I also question whether this is the final tally, since under Indiana's law those who cast provisional ballots have 10 days to get proper ID and have their votes count.
Obama made a point of congratulating Clinton on her IN win. Clinton made a habit throughout February of ignoring Obama's wins.
well, if you really believe in exit polls, these questions are pretty much or less answered.
then again, who cares?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washingt on/2008/05/a-barack-obama.html
EXCERPT A Barack Obama surprise in New Jersey poll results Funny how that recent memo from Hillary Clinton loyalist Harold Ickes recapping all sorts of positive poll numbers for her didn't include a survey from her neck of the woods. A late April poll of New Jersey voters by Braun Research found -- no real surprise -- that either Clinton or Barack Obama would win the state and its 15 electoral votes in November against John McCain. The surprise was that Obama ran substantially ahead of McCain, more so than Clinton. He beat the presumptive Republican presidential nominee by 24 percentage points; her margin was 14 points. And here was the real shocker: In a state where Clinton, senator from neighboring New York, won the Feb. 5 primary by 10 points, 45% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now said they wanted to see Obama as the party's nominee, compared with 38% who picked Clinton. Less than three months after Clinton's primary win, "some New Jersey voters feel buyer's remorse," said poll director Patrick Murray.
A Barack Obama surprise in New Jersey poll results
Funny how that recent memo from Hillary Clinton loyalist Harold Ickes recapping all sorts of positive poll numbers for her didn't include a survey from her neck of the woods.
A late April poll of New Jersey voters by Braun Research found -- no real surprise -- that either Clinton or Barack Obama would win the state and its 15 electoral votes in November against John McCain. The surprise was that Obama ran substantially ahead of McCain, more so than Clinton. He beat the presumptive Republican presidential nominee by 24 percentage points; her margin was 14 points.
And here was the real shocker: In a state where Clinton, senator from neighboring New York, won the Feb. 5 primary by 10 points, 45% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now said they wanted to see Obama as the party's nominee, compared with 38% who picked Clinton.
Less than three months after Clinton's primary win, "some New Jersey voters feel buyer's remorse," said poll director Patrick Murray.
