Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - 10:50pm
Obama Campaign: The Limbaugh Effect Is Real
by Byron York
As I write up the Obama victory event here in Raleigh tonight, I
notice there's a new proponent of "the Limbaugh effect." It's not
coming from Operation Chaos headquarters but from the Obama campaign.
Tonight I've gotten two emails from the campaign suggesting that the
Limbaugh effect was in play in Indiana. The most recent email, a few
minutes ago, was headlined "The Limbaugh Effect in Indiana =3D 7%"
noting:
According to the latest exit polling data, 17% of voters in the
Indiana primary today said they would vote for John McCain in a
Clinton/McCain matchup.
41% of that number is constituted by people who voted Clinton in the
primary but also indicated they will vote for McCain in the general
election.
That comes out to just under 7% of the primary electorate the number
that may be attributed to a =93Limbaugh Effect.=94
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
The Media Effort to Push Out Hillary Starts Tomorrow
One of my sources hasn't heard any good or reliable exit poll numbers,
but offers this grist for the rumor-mill: The closeted and not-so-
closeted Obama fans in the mainstream media (Jen Rubin spots them
here, here and here) are tired of covering a negative Democrat-against-
Democrat race. They've been working more or less nonstop since
January. They're ready to declare the race over and move on to their
first love, which is tra****ng Republicans. Thus, if Obama wins North
Carolina by any sort of margin (a very safe bet), they're going to
tout that as the decisive decision in this primary and do everything
possible to drive Hillary Clinton out of the race. Serious goalpost
moving will go on in the coming days, hoping that the superdelegates,
the public, voters in upcoming states, and other media go along with
the argument that "the race is over, let's move on to the general."
UPDATE: In a strange confirmation, Jamal Simmons, an Obama backer
doing analysis on CNN, insists that "winning North Carolina is a huge
win for Barack Obama. A huuuuge win." (It's fair, I guess... since
they have Hillary backer Paul Begala doing analysis as well.)
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-C-
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