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Many Voting for Clinton to Boost GOP
By Scott Helman
The Boston Globe
Monday 17 March 2008
For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an
awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists
voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit
polls show.
A sudden change of heart? Hardly.
Since Senator John McCain effectively sewed up the GOP nomination last month,
Republicans have begun participating in Democratic primaries specifically to
vote for Clinton, a tactic that some voters and local Republican activists think
will help their party in November. With every delegate important in the tight
Democratic race, this trend could help shape the outcome if it continues in
the remaining Democratic primaries open to all voters.
Spurred by conservative talk radio, GOP voters who say they would never back
Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons:
Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others
believe she would be easier to beat than Obama in the fall, or they simply want
to register objections to Obama.
"It's as simple as, I don't think McCain can beat Obama if Obama is the
Democratic choice," said Kyle Britt, 49, a Republican-leaning independent
from Huntsville, Texas, who voted for Clinton in the March 4 primary. "I
do believe Hillary can mobilize enough [anti-Clinton] people to keep her out
of office."
Britt, who works in financial services, said he is certain he will vote for
McCain in November.
About 1,100 miles north, in Granville, Ohio, Ben Rader, a 66-year-old retired
entrepreneur, said he voted for Clinton in Ohio's primary to further confuse
the Democratic race. "I'm pretty much tired of the Clintons, and to see
her squirm for three or four months with Obama beating her up, it's great, it's
wonderful," he said. "It broke my heart, but I had to."
Local Republican activists say stories like these abound in Texas, Ohio, and
Mississippi, the three states where the recent surge in Republicans voting for
Clinton was evident.
Until Texas and Ohio voted on March 4, Obama was receiving far more support
than Clinton from GOP voters, many of whom have said in interviews that they
were willing to buck their party because they like the Illinois senator. In
eight Democratic contests in January and February where detailed exit polling
data were available on Republicans, Obama received, on average, about 57 percent
of voters who identified themselves as Republicans. Clinton received, on average,
a quarter of the Republican votes cast in those races.
But as February gave way to March, the dynamics shifted in both parties' contests:
McCain ran away with the Republican race, and Obama, after posting 10 straight
victories following Super Tuesday, was poised to run away with the Democratic
race. That is when Republicans swung into action.
Conservative radio giant Rush Limbaugh said on Fox News on Feb. 29 that he
was urging conservatives to cross over and vote for Clinton, their bête
noire nonpareil, "if they can stomach it."
"I want our party to win. I want the Democrats to lose," Limbaugh
said. "They're in the midst of tearing themselves apart right now. It is
fascinating to watch. And it's all going to stop if Hillary loses."
He added, "I know it's a difficult thing to do to vote for a Clinton,
but it will sustain this soap opera, and it's something I think we need."
Limbaugh's exhortations seemed to work. In Ohio and Texas on March 4, Republicans
comprised 9 percent of the Democratic primary electorate, more than twice the
average GOP share of the turnout in the earlier contests where exit polling
was conducted. Clinton ran about even with Obama among Republicans in both states,
a far more favorable showing among GOP voters than in the early races.
Walter Wilkerson, who has chaired the Republican Party in Montgomery County,
Texas, since 1964, said many local conservatives chose to vote for Clinton for
strategic reasons.
"These people felt that Clinton would be maybe the easier opponent in
the fall," he said. "That remains to be seen."
Wilkerson added, "We have not experienced any crossover of this magnitude
since I can remember."
In the Mississippi primary last Tuesday, Republicans made up 12 percent of
voters who took a Democratic ballot - their biggest proportion in any state
yet - and they went for Clinton over Obama by a 3-to-1 margin.
John Taylor, the GOP chairman in Madison County, said he toured various precincts
and witnessed Republican voters taking Democratic ballots to vote for Clinton.
"Some people there that I recognized voting said, 'Hey, I'm going to vote
in this primary this year, right now. But don't worry, in November I'll be back,'
" Taylor said. "They were going to do some damage if they could."
Another popular conservative radio host, Laura Ingraham, who had also encouraged
voters to cast ballots for Clinton, crowed about her apparent success the day
after Ohio and Texas voted.
"Without a doubt, Rush, and to a lesser extent me, had some effect on
the Republican turnout," Ingraham told Fox News. "When you look at
those exit polls, it is really quite striking."
Some political blogs have suggested that the influx of Clinton-voting Republicans
prevented Obama from winning delegates he otherwise would have, by inflating
Clinton's totals both statewide and in certain congressional districts. A writer
for the liberal blog Daily Kos estimated that Obama could have netted an additional
five delegates from Mississippi.
It is also possible, though perhaps unlikely, that enough strategically minded
Republicans voted for Clinton in Texas to give her a crucial primary victory
there: Clinton received roughly 119,000 GOP votes in Texas, according to exit
polls, and she beat Obama by about 101,000 votes.
Not everyone casting ballots for Clinton did so primarily to sink her, however.
Brent Henslee, 33, a Republican who works at a radio station in Waco, Texas,
wanted to keep Clinton in the race to expose more about Obama, whom he sees
as more "fluff than substance."
"I'm not buying into all the Obama-mania, is the main reason I did it,"
he said. "A lot of these people don't know a thing about this guy and they're
crazy about him. And I thought that maybe keeping Hillary alive will just shed
some more light on the guy."
Of the nine remaining major contests, four - Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Oregon,
and South Dakota - have "closed" primaries, which means only Democrats
can participate.
If Republicans and conservative independents continue their tactical voting,
it may be more likely in Indiana, Montana, and Puerto Rico, which allow anyone
to vote, and possibly in North Carolina and West Virginia, which open their
primaries to Democrats and independent voters.
"If you are a Republican you could pull a Democrat ballot and vote for
the Democrat presidential candidate you think will stand the least chance of
beating McCain in the fall general election," the assistant editor of the
Greene County Daily World, in southwestern Indiana, wrote in a blog post earlier
this month.
Meanwhile, Clinton, despite trailing Obama in delegates, is projecting confidence
about her chances as the nomination race careens toward the April 22 Pennsylvania
primary. The morning after her big wins in Ohio and Texas, she was asked on
Fox News whether she had a message for Limbaugh.
"Be careful what you wish for, Rush," she said with a grin.
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Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.
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