The Limbaugh Effect on Clinton’s Texas Win

[Nitrogenica]

From http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/06/the-limbaugh-effect-on-clintons-texas-win/

"Clinton unquestionably secured a Texas victory, but some locals are convinced it was a false win bolstered by dirty politics. Laura Jean Kreissl, an accounting professor at West Texas A&M University, served as an election official in Canyon, Texas on Tuesday. She contacted the Wall Street Journal to report the hijinks she observed at the four precincts that voted at her polling location.

Of the 181 voters she personally dealt with, 70 offered that they were “Rush Limbaugh voters” who were there to cast ballots for Clinton. “I’m here to vote for Hillary Clinton, I want to see the Democratic Party implode,” one voter told Kreissl, she recounted in an interview. “I was just stunned,” she said. “As an election official we can’t say anything. We just jot them down and let them vote.”

Kreissl, an Obama supporter, said she kept rough counts, but her fellow poll worker, a Clinton supporter, both estimated that as many as two-thirds of the voters were Limbaugh Republicans turned Clinton voters. About 800 ballots were cast in total there. “I’m an accounting professor, I know numbers pretty well,” she said.

Kreissl worked a 19 hour day to also help organize the caucus event later that night. Similarly, she said she personally checked in 20 Obama supporters and 17 Clinton supporters. Of Clinton’s 17, 10 identified themselves as Rush Limbaugh voters, she said.

She’s convinced the Limbaugh voters turned the tide in favor of Clinton. “I don’t think we were an isolated case by any means,” she said. “I think it was very widespread across the state.”

The grassroots group, Republicans for Obama, agrees. “Hillary Clinton owes her political life to Rush Limbaugh,” they wrote on their web site Wednesday."