March 6, 2008, 6:22 pm The Limbaugh Effect on Clinton’s Texas Win http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/06/the-limbaugh-effect-on-clintons… Susan Davis reports on the presidential race. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh led a campaign to have his Republican followers in Texas cross party lines and vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the state’s open primary last Tuesday. Why? Because Limbaugh thinks Republicans can defeat Clinton in a general election. Plus, watching Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama bloody each other in a nomination fight is pure sport for Limbaugh conservatives. According to exit polls, Clinton won a notably higher number of Republican voters than she has in past open primary contests. Of the 9% of voters who identified themselves as Republicans in the Democratic Primary, Obama still edged Clinton 53%-46%. However, that margin is significantly slimmer than earlier contests. In Wisconsin’s open primary, for instance, Republicans broke 72%-28% for Obama. Similarly, in Virginia’s open primary, Obama was favored 72%-23%. 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. Rush Limbaugh is also convinced. “Don’t Doubt the Limbaugh Effect,” he boasts on his web site. Clinton won Texas 50.9%-47.4%, earning roughly 100,000 more votes than Obama. However, Texas’s two-part system of a same day primary and a caucus is expected to end up netting Obama more delegates when the caucus delegates are allotted.