Did Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" give Clinton her win in Indiana? Her victory was sufficiently narrow that it is plausible. Exit polls found that Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary went for Clinton--and most of them intend to vote for McCain in the fall.
That's not proof that these Republicans were voting for the candidate they consider weaker, or even to prolong the Democrats' primary agony. Maybe they just prefer Clinton to Obama as president, while preferring McCain to either of them. (That's my ranking of the candidates, for example.) But probably a large proportion of this subset of voters was indeed making a tactical vote. In any case, it is remarkable to think that Limbaugh may have had a bigger say in the Democratic nominee than the voters of Michigan or Florida.
Some people question the propriety of Limbaugh's calls for cross-party voting. Some of them think that he should not meddle in a party the best interests of which he does not have at heart, others that it is especially wrong to use the presidential-candidate selection process to provide his listeners with entertainment.
My own view is that it's a free country and people can vote however they wish, within the constraints of the law. Voting to saddle the party you oppose with a weak candidate may not be the highest and best use of the right to vote, but it is a permissible one, and this Limbaugh effect is unlikely to make its way into the history books.
