Back in January, I criticized Markos at DailyKos for trying to organize Democrats in Michigan, where that party's primary was supposedly meaningless, to cross party lines and vote for Mitt Romney in the GOP primary. The theory was that in handing Romney a much needed victory, it would keep the GOP in fits trying to sort out its nominee.
Funny how things work out. Now that the GOP nomination is settled and the Democratic race is off on the long march, one of their beloved bloviators is trying the same tactic. Via TalkLeft, it appears that Rush Limbaugh had launched something called "Operation Chaos," which encourages Republicans to switch registrations to vote in Democratic primaries and vote for Hillary Clinton, on the theory that she will be easier to beat in the general election. As Wired reports, Rush's dittoheads aren't exactly subtle, bragging about falsely swearing about the reasons for switching parties. Technically, it's probably a violation of Ohio election law, but it would be hella difficult to prove (and possibly unconstitutional).
Regardless of the legality of Rush's operation, it's just as sleazy as Markos's Michigan/Romney gambit. As I said back then:
This is precisely the kind of "politics as sport" that turns voters off from the entire process. It places "team loyalty" over ideals of fair play. For the record, the problem is not that Dems would vote in the GOP primary -the dumbass open primary system ensures that - it's the attempted coordination attempting to influence the race. It's perfectly legal (again, thanks to those open primaries), but not at all ethical, in my opinion. And the argument that all's fair because the GOP has done it before doesn't wash - we're supposed to be better than that, right?
1 comment:
And I thought that Rush was the paragon of ethics. Crap.
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