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.
