http://undercoverblackman.vox……d0003.html

3) re: adjust to 10% – i don’t understand this, would you please explain? thanks.

maybe it should be 9% — it depends on where the rounding occured in the exit polls. But if you reduce the number of Republicans overall by 20,000, you’ve reduced the number of republicans relative to the whole electorate. In this case, with 12,625 = 1% of total voters, reducing the number of GOP voters by 20K means that you have to reduce the percentage of the electorate represented by GOP in the party breakdown demographics.

2) re: “sure” – am i correct in interpreting this to mean that you now agree that david’s hypothetical argument could make sense if we don’t assume a 50-50 split absent the possible Limbaugh affect?

yes selise. And I also accept anyone else’s hypothetical situation — such as cat owners gave Clinton her margin of victory, or that vegans played a key role in Obama closing the gap.

So if Dave wants to assume that the overwhelming majority of sincere republicans voted for Obama, fine. We can play “what if” all day. But the reason you start with an assumption of 50-50 is because of “all things being equal” and absent ANY evidence that they aren’t equal, that is the assumption that you should use.

I’m pretty sure that if we were to look at party identification numbers for Indiana (can’t find them, but here are numbers for some typical swing states) we’d find that they range between the usual 25 to 35 percent range. So I just don’t buy that they’re only 10 percent of the electorate.

Dave, just because there is an open primary doesn’t mean that everyone votes in it. And try to keep in mind that there was also a GOP primary going on. 11% of the 1,265K voters approx 139K. There were 410K+ voters in the GOP primary. Add the Republicans who voted in the Dem primary to the people who voted in the GOP primary, and you get almost 40% of the total democratic primary electorate (or 32.9% of the overall primary electorate). Because no exit polling is available for the GOP primary, we can’t know for absolutely certain how many of the people who voted in the GOP primary were Republicans.

But there were other contests on the Indiana Republican primary ballot — including 6 of 9 US house districts that were contested.

All politics is local… and the percentage of republicans who are gonna vote Dem just to screw things up (either as part of Project Chaos, or Obama’s Dems for a Day) is probably pretty damn small.

sure. As long as you adjust the percentage of GOP among the primary electorate to 10%.

2) re: “sure” – am i correct in interpreting this to mean that you now agree that david’s hypothetical argument could make sense if we don’t assume a 50-50 split absent the possible Limbaugh affect?

3) re: adjust to 10% – i don’t understand this, would you please explain? thanks.

Which means the opposite. I think the whole way to look at these folks is to contrast their “words” with their actual actions. There were many Republican “advisors” speaking out the last few weeks about how Obama would be the “weaker candidate”…but they were expending tremendous energy in torpedoing his campaign.

Republican words and tactics aren’t contradictory. They’re going to try to torpedo the campagaign of whoever is the frontrunner, regardless of anything else; they see an advantage, rightly or not, in a continuing campaign. At the same time, they understand Obama is the nominee and have started characterizing Obama in the usual maliciou way.

I’m pretty sure that if we were to look at party identification numbers for Indiana (can’t find them, but here are numbers for some typical swing states) we’d find that they range between the usual 25 to 35 percent range. So I just don’t buy that they’re only 10 percent of the electorate.

they aren’t. the 25-35% percent numbers you are looking at is the overall electorate. The Democratic primary electorate is a subset of that.

so, for all you poll watchers out there… is this even possible – that without the limbaugh crossovers the R votes could have split 45% (clinton) to 55% (obama)?

sure. As long as you adjust the percentage of GOP among the primary electorate to 10%.

and without the “Dems for a Day’ who the Obama folks have been encouraging that voted for Obama because they hate everything Clinton, you could lose 20K more votes, and change the margins back to what they were originally — after adjusting GOP participation downward again.

When the vote is this close, literally anything can be said to have “determined the margin of victory”

One can only assume that actions speak louder than words and that the very fact that they are enunciating what they “want” yet do the opposite is telling. And rush knows very well that his “recommendation” has the EFFECT of discouraging the Superdelegates from supporting Obama.

Of course, the Republicans know that they have a formidable opponent in Obama…one that can easily contrast his anti-war position with McCain’s, is far more supportive of working people than the rich, and who knows a heck of a lot more about economic issues…vs. no-nothing “I’ll talk to my economics experts” (except, that is, when it com,es to pandering about eliminating the gas tax). Mr. Keating 5, who claims he’s for campaign finance reform…until he’s the one that has to follow those rules?

I’d say that there are some pretty clear contrasts!

I don’t know if this Paul Begala comment qualifies as “race baiting”, though its certainly deprecatory in its pairing with the college graduate baiting “egghead” (snark):

We cannot win with egg heads and African-Americans.

If you’re saying that only 10 percent of the people who voted Tuesday voted Republican

that’s exactly what paul’s link says.

but the analysis all depends on how the Rs would have voted without the Limbaugh affect (if there was one) – see my comment above. paul’s analysis assumes that they would have split 50-50. is there any reason to be confident of this assumption?

taking this analysis a bit further….

if the limbaugh affect caused 20,000 Rs to vote in the D primary for senator clinton (more than enough to have thrown the race)….

without those 20,000 voters we get, if my quick and dirty math is correct, the following:

then, instead of clinton getting 54% of the R vote, she would have had approximately 45%
and instead of obama getting 46% of the R vote, he would have had approximately 55%

so, for all you poll watchers out there… is this even possible – that without the limbaugh crossovers the R votes could have split 45% (clinton) to 55% (obama)?