Strange Bedfellows: Rush, Clinton, DailyKos

This presidential campaign has seen more than its share of oddities, from a Chuck Norris endorsement to a Stephen Colbert candidacy, but the nexus of Rush Limbaugh, Hillary Clinton, and Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos takes the proverbial Angel's Food. From CNN:

Limbaugh has been actively urging his Texas listeners to cross over and vote for Clinton in that state's open primary Tuesday, arguing it helps the Republicans if the Democratic race remains unsettled for weeks to come.

The idea is that Republican voters abandon their candidate, John McCain, to vote for Hillary Clinton, in a sort of "subtraction-by-addition," since McCain already has the Republican nomination sewn up. The strategy was first thought up earlier this year by liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas, when he urged Michigan Democrats to play havoc with that state's GOP primary by voting for John McCain.

Limbaugh elaborates:

"We need Barack Obama bloodied up politically. It's obvious that the Republicans are not going to do it, they don't have the stomach for it," Limbaugh continued. "As you probably know we're getting all kinds of memos from the RNC saying we're not going to be critical. Mark McKinnon of McCain's campaign said he'll quit if they get critical over Obama. This is the presidency of the United States we're talking about. I want our party to win I want the Democrats to lose."

The logic here is tortured, at best. If he succeeds in getting any significant number of Republicans to flip, which is doubtful, he hurts John McCain by dipping his support below 50% in Texas, generating even more headlines trumpeting the weakness of GOP support for the Arizona Senator.

Additionally, his apt positioning of Hillary as a McCain surrogate is likely to pull away more votes from Hillary than it gets her, as her negative campaigning against Obama has seemed to help him so far.

In any case, the real effect will probably be nothing, other than the disturbing boudoir image that the headline conveys.

Update: Ironically, after lambasting the RNC for being too easy on Obama, Limbaugh found it necessary to issue an on-air apology to the Senator:

"I've got to do something here to open this hour of today's excursion into broadcast excellence. I need to apologize to both Sen. Obama and to Sen. McCain, " said Limbaugh. "I had never heard of Curious George. Only now have staffers sent me little pictures of Curious George," he continued.
"So I wish to apologize to both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain. It was not my intent to bring dishonor and guttural utterances into this campaign. It happened. I laughed about it. It was a 12 year old kid's reaction to Obama, it was told by his mother. I was laughing because I was being polite, but I had never heard of Curious George."

In this instance, I have to commend Limbaugh for doing the right thing, but also feel compelled to point out that Rush might have known a little bit more about Curious George if he didn't spend so much time carrying water for Incurious George.